A briefing on Family Planning 2020 and Nepal’s commitment to family planning progress was conducted in Kathmandu today.

Beth Schlachter, the executive director of FP2020 and Lubna Baqi, country representative of United Nations Population Fund highlighted the need of family planning in the country. They also highlighted the need to provide counselling to married couples about family planning and use of contraceptives during the event.

Schlachter and her team is in the country to discuss the progress made so far in family planning and also to discuss how the three tiers of government in the country will prioritise the issues related with family planning.

“We are here to discuss the mechanism to support the government of Nepal and other stakeholders on strategic interventions, analysis and support for addressing concerns related to the stagnation of contraceptive prevalence rate, high teenage pregnancy, early marriages, high migration and related issues and their impact on family planning,” said Schlachter.

“Nepal has number of cases of early marriages and at times women do not have their say in making decisions to have children. We need to reach such population to ensure that couples and individuals are able to plan their families responsibly, use contraceptive methods of their choice and have access to reproductive health information and services,” said Baqi.

“We can share information related to global health and try to know country partners and give information to other people and organisation working in the field of family planning,” said Schlachter.