- Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health
- Family Planning
- Women, Girls, and HIV
- Maternal Health
- U.S. Foreign Policy & Funding
- Watch: Making U.S. Foreign Assistance Work for Women and Girls in Ethiopia
- Female Condoms and U.S. Foreign Policy
- Family Planning Policy Restrictions and HIV
- Global Health Initiative
- Global Gag Rule
- Helms Amendment
- Foreign Assistance Budget
- Foreign Assistance Reform
- Kemp-Kasten Amendment
- Abstinence & Fidelity
- Anti-Prostitution Pledge
- Advocacy and Foreign Assistance
- Why Women and Girls?
Family Planning
Family planning programs are a key component to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health. They provide essential and often life-saving services to women and their families. By enabling women to delay pregnancy, avoid childbearing, or space births, effective family planning programs are not only fundamental to women’s health, they also allow women and families to better manage household and natural resources, secure education for all family members, and address each family member’s healthcare needs. The best programs have also been found to increase equity between women and their partners and enhance communication and negotiation skills within couples.
Yet recent data shows that an estimated 215 million women globally have an unmet need for family planning: in other words, they do not wish to have a child at this time, yet are not using effective contraception. This lack of access to family planning methods is a major contributor to the preventable deaths of 500,000 women annually due to complications of pregnancy, childbirth, and unsafe abortion.
During the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), donor nations recognized the importance of family planning programs to broader development goals, and agreed to provide one-third of total funding needed in order to eliminate the unmet need for contraceptives. More than 15 years later, this commitment is still unrealized.
See CHANGE's Policy Brief International Reproductive Health and Family Planning: U.S. Funding Priorities and Funding Implications
Urge your Senators to Support International Family Planning Funding
Tell your Senators that you support full funding for international family planning and a permanent repeal of the Global Gag Rule.
Take Action
Tell your Representative to Support the United Nations
Congress is now considering a bill (H.R. 2829) that would effectively end our relationship with the United Nations. Act now and tell your Representative to oppose this harmful piece of legislation.
Take Action
Take Action on the Global Gag Rule
Join your voice with others and urge your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Global Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, a bill that would create a legislative barrier to block attempts by a future administration to re-instate the Global Gag Rule.
Take Action
Raise your voice for the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act
Ask your Representative to co-sponsor the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act (H.R. 1319), newly introduced legislation that promotes a truly comprehensive and integrated approach to U.S. international reproductive health programs.
Take Action
Tell your Representative to Oppose Elimination of International Family Planning Funding
The House is currently debating a spending bill (H.R. 1) that, as it stands, would drastically decrease funding for international family planning and reproductive health, global HIV/AIDS, and maternal and child health programs and services. We need you to speak out for women's health and rights today!
Take Action
Help Make U.S. Global AIDS Programs Work for Women
Send a postcard to Ambassador Goosby, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and urge him to make U.S. global AIDS programs and policies work harder and better for women and girls worldwide.
Take Action
- Advocates for Youth
- Americans for UNFPA
- Association of Reproductive Health Professionals
- Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA)
- Cervical Barrier Advancement Society
- Contraceptive Research and Development Program (CONRAD)
- EngenderHealth
- Family Care International
- Family Health International
- Guttmacher Institute
- International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
- International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC)
- Ipas
- JHPIEGO
- National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA)
- Population Action International (PAI)
- Population Council
- Population Institute
- Population Reference Bureau
- Prevention Now!
- Reproductive Health Matters
- Reproductive Health Outlook
- The Female Health Company
- The Global Campaign for Microbicides
Source0 - Emergency contraception (EC) is not distributed by USAID.
Source$6.7 billion - Fulfilling the unmet need for modern family planning methods would cost, in total, $6.7 billion annually.
Source20 million - Worldwide, there are over 20 million unsafe abortions every year.
Source215 million - Worldwide, 215 million women who want to avoid a pregnancy are not using an effective method of contraception.
Source16 million - Each year there are approximately 16 million births to adolescent mothers.
Source35 - In real terms, U.S. support for family planning is at the same level now as it was 35 years ago.
Guatemala – Regional Leader in Teen Pregnancies
Teenage pregnancies are on the rise in Guatemala, along with the drop-out rate in schools, family breakdown and many other related social ills.
Family planning: A force for good across Africa
Vanguard, April 3, 2012 - Last year, I visited a mother’s group in the Korogocho slum in Nairobi to learn more about family planning in Africa. At the end of our conversation, a woman named Mary Ann told me something I’ll never forget. She said she plans her family because she wants to “bring every good thing” to one child before she has another.
D.C. female condom program prevents HIV infections
The Washington Post, March 26, 2012 - A District program that distributes free female condoms in areas of the city with high HIV rates prevented enough infections in its first year to save over $8 million in future medical costs over and above the cost of the program, according to a new study.
Obama owes more on religious freedom
PressDemocrat.com, January 30, 2012 - One of Barack Obama’s great attractions as a presidential candidate was his sensitivity to the feelings and intellectual concerns of religious believers. That is why it is so remarkable that he utterly botched the admittedly difficult question of how contraceptive services should be treated under the new health care law.
The US is out of sync on contraception
The Guardian, January 10, 2012 - On the poor outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, we sat before six imams in an airy mosque. They are holy men, respected community leaders, and, lately, birth control champions. "Family spacing," they called it, as they cheerfully explained why Islam supports it.
UNFPA Latest Victim of House Republican War on Women
Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are using smoke and mirrors to try to distract us all from their real intentions of being the most anti-woman, anti-life crusaders the U.S. Congress has seen in decades. But, we're not falling for their thinly-veiled hypocrisy. And neither should the U.S. public.
Abortions in Africa increase despite Republican policy to curb payment for procedures
In the first study to examine American foreign aid restrictions for abortion services, Stanford researchers Eran Bendavid and Grant Miller find that restricting funding for family planning organizations that support abortions actually increased abortions in Africa.
Family planning as a pro-life cause
BWEREMANA, Democratic Republic of the Congo—Visitors walking through the thatched houses of this village on the shore of Lake Kivu are shadowed by a large, happy rabble of young children. There are, however, few middle-aged women in evidence — perhaps not surprising in a country where a woman’s average life expectancy is 49.
Ficha técnica: ¿Qué tiene que ver la planificación familiar con el VIH? Todo.
La planificación familiar voluntaria es un componente indispensable de la prevención y el tratamiento del VIH.
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File Under: Fact Sheets
What Does Family Planning Have to do With HIV? Everything.
Voluntary family planning is an indispensible component of HIV prevention and treatment.
Download this PDFFile Under: Fact Sheets
Fact Sheet: Global Democracy Promotion Act of 2011
The Global Democracy Promotion Act of 2011 provides that the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act cannot impose eligibility restrictions on international recipients of U.S. aid that would be illegal if imposed nationally. Would constitute a legislative repeal of the Mexico City Policy, also called the Global Gag Rule.
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Female Condoms and U.S. Foreign Assistance: An Unfinished Imperative for Women’s Health
Female Condoms and U.S. Foreign Assistance: An Unfinished Imperative for Women's Health, summarizes U.S. support for female condoms, identifies barriers, and offers concrete recommendations for improving U.S. efforts to increase access and availability of female condoms.
Download this PDFFile Under: Research Documents
Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Ethiopia
On July 5-9, 2010, three U.S. state legislators traveled to Ethiopia to better understand the role of U.S. foreign assistance aimed at improving the quality of reproductive health care. This report documents that trip and makes recommendations for improving effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance to advance the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls in Ethiopia.
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Trends in U.S. Support for Global Female Condom Procurement, Distribution, and Programming
Historically, the U.S. government has shown strong support for international female condom procurement and distribution. However, U.S. leadership for female condom commodities has not extended to programming. This poster was developed for the 2010 XVIII International AIDS Conference.
Download this PDFFile Under: Research Documents
Fact Sheet: Female Condoms
The basics of the female condom, the most up-to-date statistics, its level of social acceptability, and the need for increased distribution of female condoms globally.
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Fact Sheet: U.S. Global HEALTH Act of 2010
The U.S. Global HEALTH Act of 2010 (H.R. 4933) establishes a strategy to coordinate health-related U.S. foreign assistance and to assist developing countries in strengthening their indigenous health workforces and improving delivery of health services.
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Family Planning Topics
Family Planning and HIV
Voluntary family planning is an indispensible component of HIV prevention and treatment.
Female Condoms: Planning and Protection
The female condom is currently the only available dual protection tool that prevents both HIV/STIs and unintended pregnancy, and is designed for women to initiate.
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