Season’s Greetings
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2026.1.1
I’d like to extend our New Year’s greetings and express our sincere appreciation for your continued support of JOICFP over the past year.
In 2025, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) experienced serious global setbacks driven by political decisions and related drastic funding cuts. The reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule in the United States once again restricted access to contraception and safe abortion. At the same time, anti-rights and anti-gender movements intensified in many countries, further endangering the rights and lives of women and girls, LGBTQ+ people, and others facing structural vulnerability.
Most critically, the abrupt suspension of the majority of U.S. foreign assistance as well as the dismantling of USAID by the second Trump administration in early 2025 caused immediate and severe consequences. In African countries where JOICFP operates, shortages of medical equipment and essential medicines have already disrupted service delivery, leaving vulnerable people without access to basic healthcare. These policy decisions have had direct, measurable impacts on people’s health, autonomy, and survival.
Despite this challenging global landscape, meaningful progress was made in some regions. The European Union reaffirmed its commitment to advancing gender equality and SRHR. Rwanda enacted legislation lowering the age at which adolescents can access health services without parental consent from 18 to 15, significantly improving young people’s access to care. The World Health Organization’s 2025 Model List of Essential Medicines introduced, for the first time, a dedicated section for abortion medicines and removed restrictive language that had limited their use for nearly two decades. In Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare approved over-the-counter access to the emergency contraceptive pill (NorLevo®), expanding options to prevent unintended pregnancies.
In 2026, JOICFP will intensify its efforts to expand access to accurate SRHR information and high-quality services through community-based initiatives globally including in Japan. We will also strengthen policy advocacy grounded in evidence and lived realities from the field.
Under our medium-term plan through 2028, JOICFP prioritizes addressing intersecting forms of discrimination and exclusion. Guided by the principle of “SRHR for ALL,” we focus on reaching people in remote areas of low- and middle-income countries, as well as women, young people, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ communities, ensuring that access to SRHR is not determined by sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, age, or ability. A central pillar of this work is the expansion of comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education based on scientific evidence.
As wars in Gaza and Ukraine continue, and as repression deepens in Afghanistan and Myanmar — countries where JOICFP also works — we are confronted with a global reality in which power overrides rights and the dignity of marginalized people is systematically denied. We are convinced that peace is inseparable from justice, inclusion, and solidarity. The power to change this reality does not lie in rhetoric alone, but in the concrete actions taken by each and every one of us.
Together with our partners and supporters, we remain committed to building systems of care that leave no one behind. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration, expanding this global movement, and advancing the realization of SRHR for ALL.
We wish you health and strength in the year ahead.
In solidality,
Etsuko Yamaguchi,
Executive Director
