Beth Schlachter Named Executive Director of Family Planning 2020
WASHINGTON, DC (PRWEB) April 29, 2015 -- The Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) Reference Group Co-Chairs, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, and Dr. Chris Elias, President of Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, together with Kathy Calvin, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation, are pleased to announce that Beth Schlachter has been named Executive Director of FP2020, the global partnership dedicated to improving access to family planning information, services and supplies.
Schlachter joined the FP2020 Secretariat as Director last July and has led the initiative as the Interim Executive Director since February 2015. She has provided strategic leadership and oversight of FP2020’s four working groups, managed key relationships with partners and donors and helped drive conversations to ensure that FP2020 is best positioned for success in meeting its goal to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020.
The decision to appoint Schlachter as Executive Director comes after consultation with FP2020’s core conveners, which include the U.K. Department for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Population Fund and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Schlachter has more than 15 years of experience as a career foreign service officer working for the U.S. government in multilateral and bilateral contexts. Prior to joining FP2020, she served as senior population policy advisor in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration where she was the population policy team lead responsible for defining and guiding U.S. priorities on issues related to sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as U.S. international population policy. She was a lead negotiator at various sessions of the UN Commission on Population and Development and the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
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About FP2020
Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a global partnership that supports the rights of women and girls to decide, freely and for themselves, whether, when and how many children they want to have. FP2020 works with governments, civil society, multilateral organizations, donors, the private sector and the research and development community to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. FP2020 is an outcome of the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning where more than 20 governments made commitments to address the policy, financing, delivery and socio-cultural barriers to women accessing contraceptive information, services and supplies. Donors also pledged an additional US$2.6 billion in funding.
Led by an 18-member Reference Group, guided technically by Working Groups, operated daily by a Secretariat and hosted by the United Nations Foundation, FP2020 is based on the principle that all women, no matter where they live, should have access to lifesaving contraceptives. FP2020 is in support of the UN Secretary-General’s global effort for women and children’s health, Every Woman Every Child. For more information visit http://www.familyplanning2020.org
Lauren Wolkoff, Family Planning 2020, http://www.familyplanning2020.org/, +1 215-688-2604, [email protected]
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