Opportunistic Advocacy to Advance Family Planning

At the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, government leaders in both developed and developing nations set an aspirational goal: to enable 120 million more women and girls to use modern contraceptives by 2020. Encompassing 36 individual country commitments to date, this unprecedented goal—now called Family Planning 2020 (FP2020)—likewise requires an unprecedented advocacy effort to ensure that leaders act upon their promises. The Advance Family Planning (AFP) initiative and its Opportunity Fund1 are uniquely positioned to support local advocates to do just that.

Managed by PAI, the Opportunity Fund was initially intended as a companion small-grants mechanism to help civil society organizations (CSOs) outside of the core AFP initiative seize one-time advocacy “tipping points.” But it has accomplished much more. The Opportunity Fund has become critical to AFP’s ability to expand into new geographies, deepen efforts in focus countries, take risks on new objectives, leverage additional funding for advocacy, and improve the capacity of local advocates to lead successful family planning advocacy efforts in their communities.