Fifteen Years of Progress: How Can We Protect the Gains and Open a New Chapter for Family Planning in Francophone West Africa? (By Marie Ba)

By Marie Ba, Director of the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit (OPCU). Family planning in Francophone West Africa stands at a crossroads. Fifteen years ago, in many communities across the region, too many women still had limited ability to decide when to become pregnant and how to space their pregnancies, at the expense of their health and aspirations. Today, millions more women are able to shape their own futures, but these gains remain fragile. As the conditions that made this progress possible change rapidly, the needs of women and families remain urgent. The Ouagadougou Partnership (OP), bringing together Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo, has demonstrated what political will and collective action can achieve. Since 2011, the countries have kept family planning on the agenda, set shared goals and built a regional platform for accountability, cooperation and shared learning. Between 2011 and 2025, the Ouagadougou Partnership is estimated to have helped avert 30.3 million unintended pregnancies, nearly 8.9 million unsafe abortions and approximately 1.8 million maternal deaths. More than four million women became users of