State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

ange of rights. Meeting those obligations willoften be facilitated through fulfilling the rightto family planning.Family planning plays a central role in theachievement of a broad range of developmentgoals. With its special focus on disparitiesand inequalities, the post-2015 sustainabledevelopment framework will likely be composedof mutually reinforcing elements. Familyplanning reinforces at least four priorities thatreflect the emerging human rights orientation ofthis new post-2015 development framework:• Poverty reduction: Family planning permitspeople to prevent unplanned, unwanted,unhealthy pregnancies and helps reducepoverty by creating conditions that make itpossible for people to take better advantageof other social sector investments and toinvest more in their children.• Gender equality: How can women plantheir lives if they are unable to makedecisions about childbearing? Developmentefforts must put women in particular in theposition of implementing their life choices.And gender equality calls for men to play acentral role in planning their families andsupporting women and girls.• Health: family planning is fundamentalto women’s health as it delays earlypregnancies, allows spacing of pregnancies,and reduces high fertility.Improved access to family planning extendslife expectancy for both mothers and children,increases incentives to invest in schoolingand other forms of human capital, createsopportunities for participation in labourmarkets, raises the return to participation inlabour markets and results in higher incomesand levels of asset accumulation. These add upto significant benefits, particularly if declinesin fertility occur quickly enough to generate ademographic dividend. In addition, almost allstudies on this topic confirm that the magnitudeof the demographic dividend depends not onlyon the pace of mortality and fertility decline,but also on the policy environment, particularlyin the areas of sexual and reproductive healthand family planning, education, labour‐marketflexibility and openness to trade and savings.tDr. Awa MarieColl-Seck, Ministerof Health, Senegal,speaking at the LondonSummit on FamilyPlanning.©Russell Watkins/UKDepartment for InternationalDevelopment• Youth empowerment: Family planningcontributes to opening up opportunities foryouth and highlights planning for their lives.Preventing unintended pregnancy protectsadolescent girls and boys from being hijackedfrom their life opportunities. Learning toplan one’s family is a skill that is neededfor decades of a person’s reproductive life.Planning a family contributes to planningmany other aspects of one’s life: schooling,work, family formation, and other aspects.THE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2012101