Choice Not Chance: Family Planning Returns to the International Development Agenda

Following the London Summit on Family Planning, the Economist reports on global access to contraception in a piece titled, Choice not chance: Family planning returns to the international development agenda.

From the piece:

The term “family planning” dropped out of fashion—it was associated with coercive population controls—and was replaced by “sexual and reproductive health”. Many economists have argued that contraception anyway is largely irrelevant: demographic patterns, they claim, do not have much influence on economic growth and the important thing is broader socio-economic development. Others disagree. John Cleland of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calls the past 15 years ones of “horrendous neglect”.

 

So a summit on family planning, held in London on July 11th, represents a big change. The meeting, called by the British government and the Gates Foundation, a charity, won promises of $4.6 billion from donors and developing countries, to provide modern contraception (coils, pills, injectables, implants and condoms) to an extra 120m women by 2020. This would be a hefty increase on the $4 billion spent each year on family planning in those countries.

Read the full story here.

Learn more about the London Summit on Family Planning here.