Govt pledges £1bn for family planning in developing world

The Department for International Development (Dfid) has announced UK aid for family planning will double from £90m annually to £180m – a total of more than £1.4bn over eight years.

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell announced the plan at the London Family Planning Summit.

The summit, which is hosted by the government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also aims to encourage poor countries to develop their policies to support the rights of women.

The event is calling for global political commitments and resources that will enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020.

The foundation claims 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.

‘Fundamental right’

Andrew Mitchell said: “The health and rights of girls and women are front and centre of Britain’s aid programme. Being able to plan the size of her family is a fundamental right that we believe all women should have.

“British support will mean that millions of women who are currently unable to access or use family planning information, services and supplies will be able to decide, freely and for themselves, whether, when and how many children to have.”

Mrs Gates said: “When I travel and talk to women in developing countries, they all tell me that they want access to contraceptives to be able to plan their families.

“These women want to raise healthy and educated children that can contribute to building prosperous communities.”

The summit is being attended by delegates from 20 to 25 countries, including the US, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania.

In some countries women need written consent from their husbands before they can talk to a doctor about contraception while in others, family planning services are not offered to adolescents or unmarried women.

In developing countries, contraceptives are frequently out of stock when women try to get them.

A recent report from Save the Children suggests that pregnancy is the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide.

Save the Children chief executive Justin Forsyth said “Too often girls in the developing world want to get pregnant because they feel they have no other option in life but early motherhood.

“But pregnancy for a young girl can be a matter of life and death. More teenage girls are killed in pregnancy and childbirth than anything else.

“This is a global scandal. World leaders in London today must focus on both culture and condoms.”