2020 contraception target for women and girls may be missed, report warns

Family Planning 2020 says despite some advances it is off target on its pledge to give 120 million more women and girls access to modern contraception

The number of women and girls with access to modern contraception has increased by 24 million since a landmark family planning pledge in 2012 to improve availability, but progress remains slower than projected and risks leaving millions of women behind.

The Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) report, published on Thursday, showed that 290 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries were using modern methods of contraception by July 2015 – an unprecedented number. It said increases in contraceptive access in the past year had helped prevent 80 million unintended pregnancies and 111,000 maternal deaths in the FP2020 partnership’s 69 focus countries.

Despite this progress, the partnership said it was not on track to meet its target of providing 120 million additional women and girls with access to contraception by 2020, a pledge made at theLondon family planning summit in 2012.

“If we continue at this rate, we risk missing our goal – and leaving millions of women and girls without the care and services they need and deserve,” the report said. “With five years remaining until 2020, FP2020 and its partners must take immediate action to accelerate progress.”

The report showed a 32% increase in bilateral funding for family planning since 2012, with the US and UK the largest donors with a combined input of $964m last year.

Jane Hobson, senior reproductive health adviser at the UK’s Department for International Development, said funding was promising but more needed to be done. “As this year’s report shows, we are not on track to reach the 2020 goal, and we all know there is a lot more to do. We all made commitments in 2012 and we have to deliver on them,” Hobson said.

“That means prioritising family planning, keeping it on the agenda, budgeting for it, coming up with the funds for global commodities, [and] tackling the discrimination that prevents particularly young people from getting the services they need,” she said.

It means shifting social expectations so that a girl’s worth is no longer measured in early marriage and early childbearing. It means demonstrating our support publicly so that access to rights-based voluntary contraception becomes a normal part of life for communities everywhere.

highlights successes in some of the partnership’s focus countries, including Indonesia where the report was intended to be launched at the international conference on family planning this month. The Bali conference was postponed until early next year due to a volcanic eruption on the nearby island of Lombok. Indonesia introduced low-cost or free family planning to eligible couples last year and has pledged to upgrade more than 23,500 family planning clinics as part of its commitment to FP2020’s goal.

The report also noted the importance of family planning provision in times of conflict and humanitarian emergencies, claiming that more than half of all maternal, newborn and child deaths occur in these situations.

International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Owain James said it was vital to give women access to contraception during times when they were most vulnerable. “Trying to increase family planning provision in emergencies, whether it is conflict or disaster relief such as Nepal recently, is so necessary. What we see is that demand for family planning increases during this time, and too often the services just aren’t there.”

Despite the challenges, FP2020 executive director Beth Schlachter remains hopeful. “Today, three years after the 2012 London summit, our partnership is stronger than ever. The challenges ahead are immense, and we must meet them with resourcefulness, determination, and a collective sense of responsibility,” she said.