Population Connection Delegation at ICFP2025
Written by Florence Blondel | Published: November 26, 2025
Population Connection, alongside thousands of global advocates, researchers, and policymakers, actively participated in the 7th International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP), held in Bogotá, Colombia, from November 3–6, 2025, with pre-conference sessions beginning November 1.
As the world’s largest scientific gathering focused on family planning and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), ICFP brought together a vibrant community united by the goal of advancing rights, access, and autonomy for all. Our Population Connection delegation included myself, Hannah Evans, Rebecca Harrington, and Isabel Song.
Our booth may have been tucked away on the top floor, but it ended up being one of the busiest corners of the conference. The nearby lunch area drew in crowds — they arrived for food but stayed for our content.
Attendees lingered to pick up our four fact sheets on the Global Gag Rule, UNFPA funding, population and nature, and population and climate change.
We also brought some great branded merchandise that was popular with our booth visitors and helped spark conversation.
“We spoke with hundreds of SRHR advocates from around the world, all committed to ensuring access to contraception, safe abortion, and essential reproductive health care—despite a rising wave of far-right politics, much of it driven from the United States, aimed at rolling back these rights globally. – Rebecca Harrington, Population Connection
People came back with colleagues and friends, and we were not shy about inviting them to follow our channels and sign our open letter calling on journalists to refrain from amplifying low fertility panic, and to instead help raise awareness of the critical need to advance women’s and girls’ empowerment.
Colleagues Rebecca and Hannah dusted off their Spanish, while I summoned whatever French I could access, cobwebs and all, to speak with delegates from francophone Africa who were delighted to find someone who could converse (even a little!) in French. Time to brush up before the next conference.
A standout experience from ICFP was the site visit to Hospital Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, organized by the Bogotá District Health Secretariat.
There we met Dr. Jorge Eduardo Caro, a gynecologist and long-time activist for women’s rights — particularly abortion access. His stance is unwavering:
“My priority is always the woman. First the woman, second the woman and third, the woman.”
He described how most patients leaving the hospital receive comprehensive reproductive health information, including family planning counseling, with many choosing long-acting methods to prevent unintended pregnancies.
You can hear more from fellow site visitors in this Instagram reel.
In a pre-conference session exploring gender, demographic transitions, and the policy implications of low fertility, I was fortunate to meet Dr. Ana Cristina González, a founding member of Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres. She had sharp words for the media’s “apocalyptic headlines, catastrophic narratives, and portrayals of women reduced to reproductive roles amid Colombia’s supposed fertility crisis.”
UNFPA’s Dr. Sabrina Juran presented findings from their State of World Population 2025 report, covering the so-called Real Fertility Crisis. I posed a question suggesting that falling birth rates should actually be celebrated. She answered cautiously — but one panelist, Professor Everton E.C. Lima of UNICAMP, took it head-on:
“Adolescents are postponing births — and that’s what we’ve always wanted to see. It’s hard to call it a crisis. Low fertility can bring positive outcomes for society. We need to start talking about those.”
Another panelist, Dr. Kirti Iyengar from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), argued that in India, delaying first pregnancies and improving reproductive autonomy are expected to contribute to higher workforce participation, increased agency, long-term economic growth, and greater gender equality.
From another angle, Dr. Mahesh Karra (Columbia University) reminded the room that: “Economic growth is not a measure of welfare.”
But he also warned that population aging will require substantial investments in social support:
“It costs four times more to keep an older person healthy than a young dependent. Is society ready for that?”
Dr. Karra carried this same energy into a much-anticipated debate on low fertility — one of the conference’s buzziest sessions. He, alongside Dr. Funmilola OlaOlorun from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, argued that we should fear falling birth rates. On the opposing side were Nandita Bajaj, Executive Director of Population Balance and long-time friend of Population Connection, alongside UNFPA’s Dr. Sabrina Juran.
My colleague Hannah was there too and felt the intensity in the room. She noted,
“This was by far my favorite event at ICFP. I loved the dynamism of the debate structure. Nandita was exceptional—she addressed every angle of the argument with clarity and ease, and rightly brought in the historical context that situates pronatalism within its foundations in patriarchy and extractive capitalism.”
Debate attendees were asked to vote for the side they most agreed with at the end of the session, and it was encouraging that the vast majority were against fearing low birth rates.
Several other sessions took on fertility decline, including one on pronatalism and anti-rights movements featuring Kathleen Mogelgaard, President and CEO of Population Institute, who addressed the rise of coercive pronatalist policies globally.
One of the most thought-provoking pre-conference events organized by the ICFP Environment and Climate Change
Subcommittee focused on SRHR in the context of humanitarian crises and climate change. The session examined how worsening climate impacts heighten risks for women and girls, and how fragile health systems struggle to respond.
At the event, we spoke with Stephanie Marriott, a Midwife Advisor with the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), who emphasized the urgent need for one million more midwives worldwide, particularly as climate-linked crises increase maternal, newborn, and child health needs:
“When there’s an emergency, they [midwives] are already in the community. Bangladesh and South Sudan are two particular examples where midwives are dealing with flooding, cyclones, wildfires, extreme heat… all caused by climate change.”
At 6:30 a.m. (yes, really!) on day two, I rushed to a session on investing in girls. Serah Malaba, CEO of TIKO Kenya, made a compelling case for investing in adolescent girls’ health and safety by tackling the interconnected “Triple Threat” of unintended pregnancy, HIV, and sexual violence — harmful forces that restrict girls’ futures across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
“One in four girls in SSA gets pregnant before 18. Adolescent girls and women in Africa account for 63% of all new HIV infections. One in five girls experiences sexual violence before they turn 18 — and this violence is the driver of unintended pregnancy and new HIV infections among adolescent girls in SSA.” – Serah Malaba, TIKO Kenya
She held her ground when challenged by an attendee who argued the focus on girls overlooks boys:
“I am a feminist. I am a woman. I’m showing up for the girls. Why do we put the burden of reaching boys on women again? Most ministries of health have SRHR department heads as men. I want them to show up and tell us what to do with boys.”
Other notable speakers included Dr. Samukeliso Dube, Executive Director, FP2030 and Onikepe Owolabi, Vice President for International Research, Guttmacher Institute, who said when it comes to girls aged 10-14, there’s not enough available data on access to comprehensive sexuality education.
“When we don’t measure things, they don’t count. We have looked at the progress made in reducing undesired birth in most age groups apart from adolescent girls.” – Onikepe Owolabi, Guttmacher Institute
With like-minded advocacy groups from around the world gathered in one place, it was no surprise that we crossed paths with four of the 18 Global Partners supported by our members, including, Women for Conservation — whom we also visited in the stunning Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (blog coming soon!), Turimiquire Foundation, Manos Abiertas, and WINGS Guatemala.
We also connected with Margaret Edison, who just gave a brilliant presentation in our latest webinar on the environmental impact of aid cuts in sub-Saharan Africa.
The energy, solidarity, and shared determination in Bogotá were unmistakable. Across hundreds of conversations, sessions, debates, and visits, one theme held strong: the global movement for reproductive health and rights persists — even amid funding cuts, misinformation, and growing pushbacks.
“The sessions I’ve attended so far are centered on one big theme: how do we stay resilient in the face of the international funding cuts affecting our work? A recurring message is the importance of linking reproductive health to other sectors and causes. That’s why Population Connection’s presence here matters so much. We’ve spent years building bridges across issues, disciplines, and audiences, and there’s a real opportunity right now to share those lessons — our experience, our strengths — with organizations and communities around the world who are trying to navigate these shifting waters.” – Eleanor Unsworth, Executive Director, WINGS Guatemala, and Population Connection Board Member
We left Colombia inspired, informed, and ready to take our fight for reproductive health and rights for all to the next level.
