State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

UNFPA supports the Health for All coalition,a civil society organization that works towardsthe establishment of a strong and independentmonitoring and evaluation system. The drugmonitors now working in the health systemhave reduced the theft of drugs and dramaticallyincreased accountability with direct effects onpeople’s access to family planning methods.The savings realized from meetingunmet needBy investing an additional $4.1 billion inmodern contraceptive services in developingcountries, the world would save approximately$5.7 billion in maternal and newbornhealth services as a consequence of preventingunintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions(Singh and Darroch, 2012). Family planningis a cost-saving intervention at the individual,household/family and national levels (Clelandet al., 2011; Greene and Merrick, 2005). Recentresearch estimates that increased contraceptiveuse over the past two decades has reduced thenumber of maternal deaths by 40 per cent byreducing unintended pregnancies (Cleland etal., 2012). Thirty per cent more maternal deathscould be prevented simply by fulfilling unmetneed for family planning.The role of “unsafe sex”—a range of sexualand reproductive health-related conditionsincluding HIV—in the global burden of diseaseis enormous (Ezzati et al., 2002). Sexualand reproductive ill health is the fifth-leadingcause of death around the world, and the secondcontributor to the global burden of diseaseas measured by disability-adjusted life years(DALYs); the proportion of disability-adjustedlife years lost due to “unsafe sex” is much higherfor women than for men.Committing to the right to familyplanning: cost implicationsCosting family planning is challenging becausethe modes of service delivery are varied, andFamily planningservices offer a rangeof options in Guinea.© UNFPA/Mariama SireKaba.t92 CHAPTER 5: THE COSTS AND SAVINGS OF UPHOLDING THE RIGHT TO FAMILY PLANNING