London Summit on Family Planning

The UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with UNFPA, national governments, donors, civil society, the private sector, the research and development community, and other colleagues from around the world are meeting today (July 11th, 2012) at the London Summit on Family Planning to support the right of women and girls to decide, freely and for themselves, whether, when and how many children they would like to have.

According to the Summit website, “the Summit will call for unprecedented global political commitments and resources that will enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. Reaching this goal could result in over 200,000 fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth and nearly 3 million fewer infants dying in their first year of life.”

The objectives of the Summit are to:

• revitalize global commitments to family planning and access to contraceptives as a cost-effective and transformational development priority;
• improve the access and distribution of contraceptive supplies;
• and to remove and reduce barriers to family planning.

Visit the London Summit on Family Planning website here.

Watch the live stream here.

For information on new financial commitments to family planning by donors and the private sector at the Summit, click here.

Access blogs, reports, podcasts, and other special features relating to the Summit here.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #FPSummit.