A national business sector summit on family planning will be held in Manila on 15 November 2012 in conjunction with the global launch of the State of World Population 2012 report By Choice, Not By Chance: Family Planning, Human Rights and Development.

Family Welfare & Business Productivity: A Summit on Family Planning in the Business Sector aims to mobilize greater private sector support in the government’s effort to provide family planning services and information to a greater number of Filipinos, particularly those who need them most.

The International Conference on Population and Development has long recognized the potential role of the private sector in helping governments address the unmet need for family planning, especially in developing countries, including the Philippines.

Appropriately following the London Summit on Family Planning in July this year, the Summit is supported by the British Embassy in Manila. The Summit will promote and highlight the economic benefits of family planning services to companies, while ensuring consistency and impact on the reproductive health and family planning program.

The United Nations Population Fund, a key supporter of the London Summit on Family Planning, recognizes that the private sector can be best mobilized if it is included in dialogues that aim to develop areas for their engagement. The Summit will be a venue for sharing and learning good practices on family planning by business organizations.

At present, there are companies offering voluntary family planning program for employees. These organizations continue to harness such programs because of the benefits they provide both for the workers in terms of better quality of life and health, and the business in terms of improved productivity.

In 2008, the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) conducted a case study of five companies with family planning programmes for employees and came up with a cost-benefit analysis of the family planning investment.

The study showed that in a span of one year, contraceptive use in the five companies increased through the companies’ investment in subsidizing the cost of family planning commodities and care, and providing family planning information at the workplace. In effect, the programmes helped the employees prevent unplanned pregnancies and provided them an opportunity to better manage resources for the family.

For the company, investing in family planning meant better productivity for the workers, the company and the country’s economic growth as a whole.

Other companies can learn from the experiences that will be shared at the Summit and seize the opportunity to design their own programs appropriate to the needs of their employees. This can be done through partnerships that create shared values around the needs for family planning services. Resources and templates of business models on family planning/family health initiatives in the workplace, in business supported communities, or as a core business will be presented.

Lessons learned on private sector implementation of workplace and/or community programs, including those from the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) Family Welfare Initiative, will be collected and presented.

To be held at the Summit Hall of the Philippine International Convention Center, the event is jointly organized by key business organizations and NGOs that include Coalition 162 to 52, Employers Confederation of the Philippines, Financial Executives of the Philippines, The Forum for Family Planning and Development, Management Association of the Philippines, Makati Business Club, Philippine Business for Social Progress, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Philippine Center for Population and Development, and Zuellig Family Foundation.