From global commitments to local action: Revitalizing Indonesia's family planning program

To ensure universal access to contraception and reproductive health care services in our lifetime, we must begin by effecting change in our own communities, writes Dr. Surya Chandra Surapaty, head of Indonesia's National Population and Family Planning Board, ahead of the opening of the 2016 ICFP.

By Surya Chandra Surapaty // 21 January 2016

It is a simple truth: access to quality family planning saves lives, bolsters economies and improves health outcomes for individuals and communities.

And to build a healthy and sustainable world for future generations, we must address the unmet need for family planning resources and services that leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

As a global community we have made a number of important commitments to do so. In 2012, we created Family Planning 2020, an international partnership working to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. Just this September at the United Nation’s General Assembly, the global development community also ratified the Sustainable Development Goals, which call for universal access to sexual and reproductive health services by 2030.

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About the author

Surya Chandra Surapaty
Surya Chandra Surapaty is currently the chairperson of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), Indonesia. He started his career as a lecturer at his Alma Mater, Sriwijaya University, then served as a Vice Head of Center for Population Studies, Head of Center for Population Studies and Chief of Biology Medic Division, and served on the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sriwijaya.