First Lady Jeannette Kagame says family planning is key to poverty reduction

Ms. Jeannette Kagame made the remarks as she addressed the special pre-conference luncheon of the International Conference on Family Planning held in Kigali from November 12-15.

Ms. Kagame revealed that due to concerted efforts and global partnerships formed by the Rwandan Government, more Rwandans are making formal decisions on family planning as years pass on.

“The gap in unmet needs for family planning among Rwandans, fell from 40% in 1992, down to 19% by 2015 whereas Rwanda witnessed an increase from 10% in 2005, to 48% in 2015 in the use of modern contraceptive methods.

“While this progress is encouraging,” she said, “we cannot slow down our efforts, as significant challenges are still ahead of us, for example. The need for more sufficient and accurate information on sexual and reproductive health, especially among the youth, the capacity of more healthcare givers to provide quality services and therefore effectively promote family planning and sexual reproductive health and the small number of players and partners providing adequate services and interventions in response to unplanned and teenage pregnancies.

The acceleration of economic growth and poverty reduction, she said, requires access to comprehensive family planning services, for a more favorable population age structure, with more people being of working age.

“Improving family planning by availing comprehensive sexual education, is therefore essential to ensuring the holistic development of our communities,” she noted, adding that “we should continue to advocate for universal access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, so that our communities are able to fully enjoy the right to plan their families, whenever and however they wish.”

Speaking on the report entitled ‘Future Drivers of Growth in Rwanda’, launched last week by the Government of Rwanda with the World Bank, Ms. Kagame stressed on innovation, integration, agglomeration, and competition as key drivers for Vision 2050 for sustainable development as key drivers to be most focused on.