Overview

U.S. Policies & Funding

The United States is one of the most important players in the global arena of population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs, including those addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is the largest bilateral donor in sheer dollar amounts (but not when measured as a proportion of gross national income), and it holds powerful sway over global institutions. U.S. commitment to reproductive health as part of its foreign assistance ebbs and flows depending on domestic politics— in funding amounts and the policies that govern that funding. These policies have profound effects on programs around the world—and ultimately, on those they are intended to help.

International Advocacy, Institutions & Partnerships

International advocacy, institutions and partnerships are playing increasingly important roles in sexual and reproductive health financing, policy, technology and services—including responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and improving the availability of modern contraceptive supplies. Multilateral institutions, governments and NGOs are grappling with how sexual and reproductive health fits into the bigger picture of combating poverty in the wake of the worldwide focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and how to achieve them. UNFPA, the World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, are just a few of the international bodies that shape sexual and reproductive health programming.

Comparative Funding & Finances

Global funding for family planning and reproductive health care, including contraceptive supplies, continues to fall short of needs in developing countries. Donor countries and institutions such as the U.S., the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Nations and development banks collectively failed to meet in 2004 the US $6.1 billion needed annually by 2005 for sexual and reproductive health in the developing world as estimated at the time of the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994. It remains to be seen if the target was met the following year in 2005. Increasing demand for family planning and reproductive health, a result of more and more women seeking choice in childbearing, the increase in the number of women of reproductive age as large populations of youth move into childbearing years and the growth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, means that funding issues will remain a critical area of focus for the development community in the foreseeable future.

Reproductive Health Supplies

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development established the right of men and women to be informed about their reproductive choices and health, and to have access to the information and services that make good health possible. Comprehensive reproductive health services—especially care in pregnancy and childbirth and for sexually-transmitted infections (STIs)—are key to improving health. Better access to emergency care during childbirth would contribute significantly to lower maternal death rates. Providing safe, effective and affordable contraceptives to all who want them enables women and men to make important decisions about childbearing and family size. Where abortion is legal, it must be safe and accessible because women's lives and health are less at risk where abortion is legal.  And improving reproductive health helps improve the quality of life for women, men and families around the world while contributing to poverty reduction.

Development & Security

From government to academia, there is an increasing desire to understand what makes a state “healthy”—healthy in the sense of more peaceful, more democratic, and better able to provide for the needs of its citizens. Research conducted by PAI and others indicates that demographics can have a significant impact on countries’ stability, governance, economic development and the well-being of its people. Accordingly, programs that promote a society’s demographic transition from high to low rates of birth and death— programs such as such as family planning and girls’ education—must become a priority for donors of development assistance and developing nations themselves.

Population and Environment

The single biggest factor affecting the world’s natural resources is human population growth. Our air, land and water—and flora and fauna—are all critically affected by how many of us there are, and how and where we live. With each generation, the environment is increasingly strained by population pressures. Improved access to voluntary family planning services can lead to more sustainable population growth rates by giving people the tools to plan the size of their families—many of whom will choose to have fewer children if given the option. Access to reproductive health services grounded in individual rights, along with education, can go a long way towards improving the quality of life of women and their families, together with reducing human pressures on the environment.