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, multi-lateral 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. Since then, the number of countries with FP2020 commitments has grown to 37 and, in 2014 alone, donors provided US $1.4 billion in bilateral funding for family planning—32 percent more than in 2012. Learn more at www.familyplanning2020.org.

FP2020’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) provides Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) with grants that respond to urgent, emerging, unanticipated and/or time-bound opportunities that will help FP2020 meet its goal of enabling 120 million additional women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. The RRM supports projects that amplify existing Family Planning programs in an FP2020 focus country. RRM grants are catalytic, meeting key challenges in order to meet FP2020s goals and priorities. RRM funding is disbursed rapidly by the FP2020 Secretariat and must be spent within a maximum of 12 months by the Grantee. The majority of RRM-funded projects last 3 to 6 months. Awards do not exceed US$250,000, with the significant majority of RRM-funded projects receiving less than US$100,000.

The RRM follows a dual track, being either (1) a consultancy-based contract or (2) an activity-based grant around one of four main themes:

• Technical assistance provided to key stakeholders in need of expert support (for example, the cost of a high-level Consultant(s) in supply chain management).
• Non-routine training of family planning providers (for example, to train Community Health Extension Workers after a new task-shifting policy has been passed).
• Advocacy, including through a pilot project (for example, gathering evidence through a pilot on the positive effects of youth-friendly family planning services, to inform upcoming budgetary negotiations and secure increased funding for this type of service).
• Increasing access for hard-to-reach and marginalized groups, including adolescents and youth, and in post-crisis contexts
• Other Priorities (for example, time-sensitive, local adaptation of contraceptive guidelines).