State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

tDonor Commitmentspanel at the LondonSummit on FamilyPlanning.©Russell Watkins/UK Department forInternationalDevelopment2008 to 27 per cent today. In Southeast Asia,the rate rose from 50 per cent to 56 per centover the same period. Between 2008 and 2012,an average annual increase of 1.7 per cent inmodern-method users translated into 42 millionadditional married women using family planning.Singh and Darroch (2012), with their newmeasures of unmet need, recalibrated to includeestimates of sexually active never-marriedwomen, calculate that of the 1.52 billion womenof reproductive age in developing countries, 867million have a need for family planning in 2012.The needs of about three in four of thosewomen are being met. The needs of one in fourof them, however, are not.Funding fails to keep pace with needDonor and government support for sexual andreproductive health, especially family planning,has been shrinking at a critical time, whennearly 2 billion young people are entering theirreproductive years. Meanwhile, many developingcountries have not made sexual and reproductivehealth a priority in their health sectors(Population Council, 2007; Birungi et al., 2006).At the same time, sexual and reproductive healthhas lost ground to “competing” health issues,such as infectious diseases, because the field hasfailed to persuade power brokers—such as policymakersand donors—to increase funds.The Programme of Action of the InternationalConference on Population and Development,ICPD, called on international donors to coverone-third of the costs for sexual and reproductivehealth, including family planning, and developingcountries themselves to contribute two-thirdsof the total.Both developing countries and donorcountries have fallen short of this target. Forexample, to meet the family planning needsof current users of modern contraception in2010, donors had been expected to contributeabout $1.32 billion but actually contributed$822 million—about one-third less thanthe target amount.The shortfall may be attributed to budget cutsin some donor countries but also to changes inthe way a country decides to allocate resources.The United States, for example, a major contributorto international family planning, has placeda growing number of countries on a “graduation”list. As countries “graduate,” they are seen as nolonger requiring the same level of support theyonce enjoyed. Countries slated for graduationare those with a total fertility rate of 3.0 or lessand a modern contraceptive prevalence rate of 55per cent or more (Bertrand, 2011). Countries inLatin America have been especially affected bythe graduation process, since some of the region’sministries of health have not filled the void asUnited States funding ends or is phased out.90 CHAPTER 5: THE COSTS AND SAVINGS OF UPHOLDING THE RIGHT TO FAMILY PLANNING