State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

ange of rights. Meeting those obligations will
often be facilitated through fulfilling the right
to family planning.
Family planning plays a central role in the
achievement of a broad range of development
goals. With its special focus on disparities
and inequalities, the post-2015 sustainable
development framework will likely be composed
of mutually reinforcing elements. Family
planning reinforces at least four priorities that
reflect the emerging human rights orientation of
this new post-2015 development framework:
• Poverty reduction: Family planning permits
people to prevent unplanned, unwanted,
unhealthy pregnancies and helps reduce
poverty by creating conditions that make it
possible for people to take better advantage
of other social sector investments and to
invest more in their children.
• Gender equality: How can women plan
their lives if they are unable to make
decisions about childbearing Development
efforts must put women in particular in the
position of implementing their life choices.
And gender equality calls for men to play a
central role in planning their families and
supporting women and girls.
• Health: family planning is fundamental
to women’s health as it delays early
pregnancies, allows spacing of pregnancies,
and reduces high fertility.
Improved access to family planning extends
life expectancy for both mothers and children,
increases incentives to invest in schooling
and other forms of human capital, creates
opportunities for participation in labour
markets, raises the return to participation in
labour markets and results in higher incomes
and levels of asset accumulation. These add up
to significant benefits, particularly if declines
in fertility occur quickly enough to generate a
demographic dividend. In addition, almost all
studies on this topic confirm that the magnitude
of the demographic dividend depends not only
on the pace of mortality and fertility decline,
but also on the policy environment, particularly
in the areas of sexual and reproductive health
and family planning, education, labour‐market
flexibility and openness to trade and savings.
t
Dr. Awa Marie
Coll-Seck, Minister
of Health, Senegal,
speaking at the London
Summit on Family
Planning.
©Russell Watkins/UK
Department for International
Development
• Youth empowerment: Family planning
contributes to opening up opportunities for
youth and highlights planning for their lives.
Preventing unintended pregnancy protects
adolescent girls and boys from being hijacked
from their life opportunities. Learning to
plan one’s family is a skill that is needed
for decades of a person’s reproductive life.
Planning a family contributes to planning
many other aspects of one’s life: schooling,
work, family formation, and other aspects.
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