The Initiative in the News

Odeku: Home-grown Family Planning Models can Reduce Maternal Deaths

Dr. Moji Odeku is the Project Director, Nigeria Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) and former Head of the Reproductive Health Programme at the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) where she focused on safe motherhood and family planning, including contraceptive logistic management, among others. She fielded questions from journalists at the recently concluded National Council on Health meeting held in Abeokuta, Ogun State.


When Women Are In Charge Of Family Planning, Everyone Wins

Every year, World Population Day, which falls on 11 July, serves as a reminder of the burgeoning human population, and its grim implications. For India, the challenge is especially pronounced—by 2024 we are poised to become the most populated country in the world. The theme of World Population Day this year—Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations—thus was even more significant in the context of the India story….read more


How The Challenge Initiative will Help Nigeria Achieve Family Planning 2020

The Challenge Initiative (TCI) is about a new approach which we call business unusual, it seeks to achieve three key things: ensure sustainable investment in family planning; secondly, we want to ensure governments take ownership of family planning programs, as against the current sole dependence on donor funding and thirdly, we want to see the replication of models that have worked….read more


The Challenge Initiative: Putting Family Planning Investment in Nigeria on the front burner

This Thought Leadership piece comes from Dr. Victor Igharo and Dr. Olukunle Omotoso from The Challenge Initiative (TCI) Nigeria, a four-year intervention supported by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health… read more


Nigeria not investing in family planning

Health economists estimate Nigeria will need to invest at least $603 million (around N189.7 billion) by next year in family planning to reach its target of ensuring at least 36 out of every 100 women of child-bearing age get access to modern contraception methods…read more


Federal Ministry of Health and Gates Institute of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health launch bold initiative to address reproductive health needs in urban poor areas of Nigeria 

The Gates Institute at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Federal Ministry of Health announce the launch of the Nigeria Hub of the Challenge Initiative (TCI), a global program that aims to have a dramatic impact on reproductive health for underserved poor communities. The Initiative will formally launched on February 23rd 2017…read more


A Letter to our Colleagues Re: the Mexico City Policy

I write today to inform you of how the Mexico City Policy, reinstated by President Trump last Monday, will impact the activities of the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute and our partners worldwide…read more


Gates Institute Announces “The Challenge Initiative” to Provide Greater Access to Family Planning for Urban Poor in Developing World

The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is launching The Challenge Initiative (TCI), a global urban reproductive health program supported by a three-year, $42 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…read more


Frontiers of Public Health / Family Planning

An advocate with a passion for evidence, Jose “Oying” Rimon II leads the world’s largest family planning conference…read more