Access 2 RH Supplies

RH Supplies Advocacy Workshop in Santiago de Chile

On October 5th-6th 2009, prior to the ECLAC Latin American regional review of the ICPD+15 in Santiago de Chile, represantatives of 25 women’s rights and SRHR organisations from 15 countries in the region, gathered to improve their skills in RH supplies advocacy and to work on a joint advocacy strategy. The workshop for this group of experienced advocates focused on knowledge-building on RH supplies and the impact of universally accessible supplies on achieving international development goals, such as the ICPD goals. Moreover, it offered participants the opportunity, to attend the regional ICPD review meeting and speak out on the identified issues.

The first part of the workshop mainly concentrated on clarifying concepts and definitions and introducing PRMA’s work on RH supplies. IPPF and MEXFAM presented activities in Mexico and Nicaragua and DSW presented the key findings of its regional mapping. Based on these facts and figures, the group started to discuss RH supplies issues in the region that need to be addressed. In working groups participants identified actions that need to be taken in order to create a supportive environment for supplies in the region. The action plan resulting from this work includes conducting a mapping of organisations and donors interested in funding work on supplies in the region. Subsequently, resources, such as the RH supplies advocacy toolkit and the RHInterchange, and opportunities, such as RHSC membership and international development goals review meetings, to address these issues were presented and discussed.

As a short-term opportunity, the ECLAC ICPD+15 review meeting was identified and the need to include “universal access to RH services and supplies” expressed. Facilitators gave an overview on the ICPD+15 process so far, including the CPD, the Panama regional NGO meeting, and the global NGO forum in Berlin. Following that summary and discussing language used in the conferences’ outcome documents, a joint approach on how to speak out on the issues was prepared.