Addis Abeba is to host the International Conference on Family Planning which will be held for four days starting on November 12, 2013, and organised by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health.

The conference will be the third of its kind with the first held in 2009 in Kampala and the second in Dakar two years ago.

Close to 4,000 participants are expected to take part in the conference. Ethiopia was selected to host the conference because of the achievements it registered in increasing the number of family planning service beneficiaries and successful health extension activities, according to the press release released by the MoH.

Ethiopia has registered commendable success in its family planning program during the last 10 years through making use of contraceptives, a study conducted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in 2012 revealed. The study also indicated that use of contraceptives in the country has grown to 52.5pc from 35.8pc with in a decade.