Roundtables:
Lunch & Learn Spark Sessions and Ignite Nights
ICFP isn’t just a convening; it’s a catalyst. It is where connections and conversations lead to transformational collective action. The ICFP 2025 Lunch & Learn Spark Sessions and Ignite Nights offered ICFP attendees a new way to engage with each other and unite around the most pressing issues in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) today.
This coordinated series of events connected the dots across the week—from lunchtime dialogue to evening reflection, from questions to clear contributions. Together, these sessions:
- Fostered new connections across sectors, in the name of learning and action
- Surfaced shared challenges and tangible opportunities for collaboration
- Transformed conversations into concrete actions and partnerships
Across Lunch & Learn Spark Sessions and Ignite Nights, the conference offered a coordinated flow of discussions and collaborations that built on one another—helping participants turn ideas into action.
Lunch & Learn Spark Sessions:
The Conversation Begins
The Lunch & Learn Spark Sessions at ICFP 2025 transformed shared meals into purposeful moments of connection and collaboration. Each day of the conference, attendees were invited to participate in interactive, facilitated discussions designed to surface ideas, voice lived experiences, and engage across sectors.
Day 1
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
The first day of Spark Sessions featured a broad range of topics and provocations led by ICFP subcommittees, youth leaders, and partners. These conversations raised timely questions and sparked dialogue on emerging and urgent issues shaping the SRHR movement.
Day 2
Wednesday, 5 November 2025
The second day shifted into deeper roundtable discussions focused on a curated set of critical “Hot Topics.” These timely issues invited cross-sector thinking, encouraging participants to explore nuances, interrogate assumptions, and consider how diverse actors could come together in response.
What the Spark Sessions Achieved
The Spark Sessions were intentionally structured where moderators grounded each discussion in urgency and relevance before guiding participants toward solutions-oriented dialogue. Attendees shared stories from policy, service delivery, financing, research, advocacy, and lived experience collectively identifying what tangible progress could look like beyond the conference.
What emerged were not just conversations, but concrete insights:
- Practical ideas for strengthening programs and policy efforts
- Cross-regional and cross-sector links that sparked potential partnerships
- Identification of persistent gaps in evidence, financing, and accountability
- Reflections on shared challenges requiring coordinated response
Ignite Nights:
Where Ideas Turn into Action
The Ignite Nights transformed the ICFP 2025 Plenary Hall into a space of urgency, reflection, and collective reckoning. Designed as a two-part evening experience, these plenary sessions carried the energy of the day into shared accountability and action.
Day 1: From Sparks to Heat
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
The first evening opened with a rapid series of 2–3-minute “Hot Topic” provocations where speakers representing ICFP subcommittees and movement leaders shone a spotlight on critical, time-sensitive issues shaping the field.
Each provocation named a challenge that could not wait: political backlash against safe abortion, rising pron narratives, disinformation threatening family planning evidence, decolonizing funding structures, threats to adolescent rights, supply chain bottlenecks, and more.
Grounded in real developments since the March 2025 Future of Family Planning Convening hosted by the William H. Gates Sr. Institute (WHGI) and FP2030, the updates moved beyond description to confront a central question: What must we do now?
The room shifted from listening to reflection and response. At the close of the session, participants were invited to submit their own “Burning Questions“—the unresolved tensions, strategic dilemmas, and urgent uncertainties they believed the movement must address together, and on which they themselves felt compelled to act.
Day 2: From Heat to Fired Up for Action
Wednesday, 5 November 2025
The second Ignite Night transformed questions into collaboration. Participants selected from a curated set of “Burning Questions” and joined others across sectors and geographies to brainstorm tangible next steps.
Rather than remaining at the level of dialogue, attendees were asked to articulate their own contributions—identifying actions they could take individually and collectively to advance family planning and SRHR beyond the conference. Small-group exchanges focused on shared ownership, partnership formation, and practical pathways forward.
What Ignite Nights Achieved
Together, the two evenings:
- Clarified which issues feel most urgent across geographies and sectors
- Sharpened complex debates into focused, actionable challenges
- Created shared language around emerging risks and opportunities
- Transformed reflection into early-stage commitments and collaborative intent
More than evening plenaries, Ignite Nights functioned as a pulse check for the global SRHR community—a moment to name what is difficult, what is urgent, and what demands coordinated action. In doing so, they reinforced ICFP’s role not simply as a convening space, but as a platform for courageous conversation, collective accountability, and catalytic movement-building.