The international community has agreed that the right to health includes the right to control one’s health and body, including sexual and reproductive freedom. However, more remains to be done to ensure that human rights are in fact treated as the cornerstone of any family planning effort: from global initiatives to national programs to community-based projects.

The rights principles outlined must be realized in order to reach and sustain goals for meeting contraceptive needs. These rights principles are informed by and build upon existing human rights principles and resources that seek to integrate rights based approaches specifically for family planning into programming.

Ensuring that human rights principles are at the center of family planning policies, programs, measurement and contraceptive markets represents some of our most challenging work. However, as a global initiative, FP2020 recognizes that investing in human rights is critical to growing sustainable, equitable and effective programs with lasting impact.

Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that globally 75.7% of women of reproductive age have their family planning needs met with modern methods, while in Central and West Africa this figure does not exceed 50%.

The WHO information also reflected that some 214 million women in developing countries wish to postpone or stop childbearing, but do not use any contraceptive method due to lack of care in terms of conception.

The UN health agency added that some family planning methods, such as condoms, help prevent the transmission of HIV and other infections, in addition to avoiding unwanted pregnancies and therefore controlling the mortality of mothers and children at birth.

Family Planning is vital to control population growth, as well as the effects it has on the economy and the environment, especially in developing nations.

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