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July 11, 2008Health Policy Initiative Celebrates World Population Day
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| Women waiting outside a local reproductive health camp in India. Suneeta Sharma, 2007. |
July 11, 2008 marks the 40th World Population Day, a program of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Since its inception, the day has symbolized individuals’ basic right to decide and plan the number and timing of their children. This day recognizes that family planning contributes to addressing development challenges such as poverty, gender equality, maternal health, and human rights. Reducing unmet need for family planning is a strategy that can slow population growth and reduce demographic pressure, which can help countries lift themselves out of poverty.
An estimated 200 million women worldwide want to delay or avoid pregnancy but are not using safe and effective methods of family planning.
The USAID | Health Policy Initiative, Task Order 1 (HPI) works to improve the policy environment for a broad reproductive health agenda. HPI has implemented a range of strategies to ensure that family planning receives adequate political support and funding.
Family Planning and Poverty Reduction
HPI created a guide designed to help family planning champions and other stakeholders promote the inclusion of family planning issues and programs into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). When countries recognize reducing unmet need as a strategy to reduce poverty, they express their commitment to devise, fund, and implement family planning initiatives. Read the guide, which highlights our success in Mali’s PRSP process.
Contraceptive Security
Contraceptive security (CS) is achieved when individuals have the ability to choose, obtain, and use contraceptives and condoms whenever they need them. HPI helps countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region achieve contraceptive security efficiently and equitably. HPI and DELIVER have prepared a series of documents that address challenges to achieving contraceptive security, including decentralization, meeting the needs of the poor, increasing private sector involvement, overcoming political barriers, financing, and sustainability of CS committees. To read more about our work in contraceptive security, read the brief: Approaches that Work: Contraceptive Security.
Achieving the MDGs
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are set to be met by 2015, but many countries are not “on track” to meet the goals set out. HPI developed a benefit-cost analysis that found that meeting unmet need for family planning can reduce the cost of achieving the targets outlined in the MDGs by reducing the size of the target population groups. The project has applied the analysis in 31 countries, and created a series of briefs to use as advocacy tools for working with policymakers. To read more about our work related to the MDGs, visit our page on Achieving the MDGs: The Contribution of Family Planning.
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