To Achieve UHC, Let’s Scale #PeoplePowered Healthcare

By Jennifer Pope, VP, Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV, and TB, PSI

As we come together for this International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP), we have an opportunity to collectively reflect on key questions critical to achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights:

  • How do we break down barriers standing between people and their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)?
  • How do we support health providers to deliver quality, empathetic care?
  • How do we expand our definition of health systems to include self-care… and then build those systems including digital solutions to be responsive, equitable and accountable to the people and communities we serve?

And, perhaps most importantly, how do we achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) that is inclusive of SRHR needs?

Individual people – their unique needs and lived experiences – are at the center of these questions, and our collective work to find sustainable SRHR solutions. Through PSI’s FP2030 commitment, we have pledged to innovate and scale person-centered solutions that enable 100M people to make full, free, and informed sexual and reproductive health choices throughout their life course. Core to our approach is #PeoplePowered healthcare, and why this ICFP issue of Impact centers on how #PeoplePowered solutions can help get us to UHC, and beyond.

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Women attend a group counseling session on methods of contraception led by PSI staff member Doung Mao at Sovannay Health Care Room, a Sun Quality provider in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. November, 2010 – PSI Cambodia. Photo by Jake Lyell

By Dorine Irankunda,  SRH Senior Technical Advisor, Quality of Care , PSI

#PeoplePowered healthcare necessitates stronger, resilient and inclusive health systems that uplift the voices, needs and experiences of the people and communities we serve. It supports us to go beyond traditional problem-based, vertical strategies and take a holistic approach to meeting people’s needs.

As this Impact underscores, to get #PeoplePowered, we must disrupt the status quo. SRHR movers and shakers—including ICFP and A360 youth trailblazers, ICFP’s Dr. Jose “Oying” Rimon II, Director of the International Steering Committee, Ouagadougou Partnership’s Director, Marie Ba, Director, Fos Feminista’s Fadekemi Akinfaderin, Chief Advocacy Officer, CIFF’s Faustina Fynn-Nyame, Africa Executive Director, PSI Ethiopia’s Metsehate Ayenekulu, Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Director, UNFPA’s Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director, and PSI Uganda’s Dr. Lillian Sekabembe, Deputy Country Representative, among so many others, probe us to consider how.

Specifically, what will it take to…

As these authors share, we can and will achieve UHC if we invest in #PeoplePowered health solutions and systems. This #ICFP2022, let’s chat how.

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This article is a part of PSI’s ICFP 2022 Impact Magazine. Explore the magazine here.

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Cover

01 #PeoplePowered

02 Breaking Taboos

03 Moving Care Closer to Consumers

04 Innovating on Investments

ICFP Q&A:
Let's Talk About Sex

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