The following is a summary of blog posts addressing the International Conference on Family Planning, taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from November 12-15.

• Julie Bernstein, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog: Bernstein, a senior communications officer at the Gates Foundation, interviews Elizabeth Lule, the foundation’s family planning director, ahead of the conference. According to the transcript, Lule reflects on her work since joining the foundation and examines the importance of this year’s event, among other topics (11/11).
• Pape Gaye, IntraHealth’s “Vital” blog: “As reproductive health policymakers, advocates, and practitioners are gathering at the African Union in Ethiopia, some of us, who would like to clone ourselves to be there with you — and feel like we are there in spirit — are gathered in Brazil for the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health,” the IntraHealth CEO writes in a letter to the editor of Addis Fortune. “Two significant global health conferences are taking place and the links between them are evident,” he states, adding, “The theme of this year’s family planning conference is ‘full access and full choice.’ We all know that there is no access and no choice, without health workers” (11/11).
• Michael Holscher, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog: “Many of us are reconvening at [the] International Conference on Family Planning in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and will surely be asking: how will we keep our promise? And, what will we have to do to deliver full access and full choice to these women?” Holscher, an international development professional, writes. “Firstly, we need resources and partnerships that will allow us to reach all of the women who are in need of family planning” and “to see that the financial resources pledged at FP2020 flow”; “[s]econdly, for FP2020 to succeed, we must improve the way we count the women we reach”; and “[f]inally, for FP2020 to succeed in spirit as well as fact, we must ensure that the women we reach have full access and full choice,” he states (11/8).