State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

use, and reduces unintended pregnancy (Creel,
Sass and Yinger, 2002).
In recent years, consensus has emerged on
what ensuring quality means in the context of
family planning and human rights. It includes:
• Providing family planning as part of other
reproductive health services, such as prevention
and treatment of sexually transmitted
infections, and post-abortion care (Mora et
al., 1993);
• Disallowing family planning targets, incentives
and disincentives, such as providing
money to women who undergo sterilization
or to health-care providers on the basis of
number of women “recruited” for family
planning;
• Including assessments of gender relations in
plans and budgeting for family planning
services (AbouZahr et al., 1996);
• Accounting for factors such as the distance
clients must travel, affordability and
attitudes of providers.
In settings as diverse as Senegal and
Bangladesh, women are more likely to use
family planning where they are receiving good
care (Sanogo et al., 2003; Koenig, Hossain and
Whittaker, 1997). Among women not using
contraception, their perceptions of the quality
of care significantly predicted the likelihood
that they would start using a method; similarly,
those currently using contraception were far
more likely to continue using their method. By
improving the quality of services, programmes
have also created a greater sense of entitlement,
leading clients to demand better quality in
other parts of the health system (Creel, Sass
and Yinger, 2002).
A human rights-based approach to sustainable
development gives equal importance to both
the outcomes and processes through which it
is achieved. Human rights standards guide the
formulation of development outcomes and the
content of interventions, including meeting the
unmet need for family planning. Human rights
principles lend quality and legitimacy to development
processes. Processes have to be inclusive,
participatory and transparent. Of critical importance
is the priority that must be given to the
rights and needs of those groups of population
left behind and excluded as a result of persistent
patterns of discrimination and disempowerment.
t
Woman and child,
Tanzania
©UNFPA/Sawiche Wamunz
“Ill health constitutes a human rights violation when it arises,
in whole or in part, from the failure of a duty-bearer—typically
a State—to respect, protect or fulfil a human rights obligation.
Obstacles stand between individuals and their enjoyment
of sexual and reproductive health. From the human rights
perspective, a key question is: are human rights duty-bearers
doing all in their power to dismantle these barriers”
(Hunt and de Mesquita, 2007).
THE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2012
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