State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

health care, which includes family planning
and sexual health. Reproductive health-care
programmes should provide the widest range
of services without any form of coercion.”
(UNFPA, 1994)
The State’s obligations to respect, protect and
fulfil the right to contraceptive information and
services include both limitations on its actions
and proactive obligations it must undertake
(Center for Reproductive Rights and UNFPA,
2010; Hunt and de Mesquita, 2007).
• Respect: States must refrain from interfering
in the enjoyment of the right to family
planning by, for example, restricting access
through spousal or parental consent laws
or and by prohibiting a particular family
planning method.
• Protect: States must also prevent third parties
from infringing people’s access to family planning
information and services, for example, in
instances of refusal by a pharmacist to provide
legally available contraceptive methods.
• Fulfil: States are required to adopt legislative,
budgetary, judicial, and/or administrative
measures to achieve people’s full right to
family planning, which may, for example,
require subsidizing goods and services.
Governments may be prevented by their
limited resources from immediately fulfilling
certain economic, social, and cultural rights
underpinning individuals’ right to family planning
information and services. This is where the
principle of “progressive realization” comes in: In
recognition of these realities, human rights law
permits States to demonstrate they are taking
steps “with a view to achieving progressively the
full realization” of these rights, to the extent of
their maximum available resources (International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, 1966).
In addition to allocating resources, States
must take steps towards incorporating family
planning into national public health policies
and programmes, and establish measures of
reproductive health that assist in monitoring
national progress towards family planning goals.
UNFPA FAMILY PLANNING STRATEGY
2012-2020
Goal: to deliver access to family planning for 120 million
additional women in 69 countries by 2020.
The UNFPA family planning strategy is founded on key principles:
a rights-based approach including a commitment to gender equality;
geographical, social and economic equity in services; a focus on
innovation and efficiency; sustainable results, and integration with
national priorities.
UNFPA’s commitment to the integration of human rights in family
planning policies and programmes emphasizes two essential actions.
All policies, services, information and communications must meet
human rights standards for voluntary use of contraception and quality
of care in service delivery. And actions must be taken to reduce the
poverty, marginalization and gender inequalities that are often the
root causes of violations of the right to family planning and of people’s
inability to enjoy their right to family planning (Cottingham, Germain
and Hunt, 2012; Center for Reproductive Rights and UNFPA, 2010). In
focusing on rights, UNFPA commits in particular to:
• Ensuring that the contraceptives procured respond to genderspecific
needs;
• Informing men, women and young people about the availability
of contraceptives and where they can access them—and
supporting them as they exercise their rights to family planning;
• Supporting both men and women to transform gender
attitudes and cultural barriers that impede access to and use of
family planning.
UNFPA focuses on:
• strengthening political and financial commitment to
family planning;
• Increasing demand for family planning;
• Improving national supply chain management;
• Improving availability and quality of family planning services;
• Improving knowledge management on family planning.
THE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2012
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