Harare, 1 March, 2018 - UNFPA Country Representation Dr. Esther Muia today paid a courtesy call on Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council (ZNPFC) Executive Director, Dr. Munyaradzi Murwira. Dr. Muia was accompanied by the UNFPA Assistant Representative, Ms Abbigail Msemburi and Technical Specialist-Family Planning, Vibhavendra Singh Raghuvanshi.

ZNPFC is UNFPA’s long standing partner in the implementation of the Family Planning (FP) programme in Zimbabwe. The two partners had a wide ranging discussion on the FP programme. They discussed work currently underway, successes and challenges and how to further strengthen programme implementation to ensure women and girls even in the most remote areas of Zimbabwe are reached with essential FP services.

Overall, prevalence of modern methods among married women is 65.6%, according to the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2015. The country is on track to achieve the FP2020 Target of 68%. The high performance of Family Planning programme in Zimbabwe is the combined outcome of many years of government leadership and donor support. ZNFPC was established in 1985 and has been coordinating the FP program since then.

Although Zimbabwe has done well to provide FP services to the population more effort still is needed to reach vulnerable sections of the society such as adolescents, young people, the poor and less educated and people living in rural areas.

“Ending unmet for family planning is one of UNFPA’s three transformative goals in the new strategic plan for 2018- 2021,” said Dr. Muia. “We must work hard to ensure that we reach many women with affordable and quality FP services and increase uptake.”