State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

tPresident of NigeriaGoodluck Jonathanannounces plan inSeptember to increaseaccess to life-savingsupplies, includingfamily planning.Jonathan co-chairsthe UN Commissionon Life-SavingCommodities.©United Nations/J. Carrierand Gage, 2011). The younger a girl is at thetime of marriage, the greater the challengesshe faces in controlling her own fertility, andthe more subject she is to closely spaced andrepeated pregnancies (Rutstein 2008).Adequately meeting the family planningneeds of older people requires challenging thepervasive assumption that these individualsdo not need to exercise their right to familyplanning. Often overlooked in the design offamily planning policies and programmes aremen over the age of 49 whose fertility declinesonly gradually as they age. This omissioncompromises the rights of sexually activeolder people who wish to protect themselvesfrom harmful sexual and reproductive healthoutcomes. As was affirmed by the Commissionon Population and Development in 2012,services and information should be madeavailable to adults who are separated from theirpartners or in new partnerships later in life.States and the international communityshould strengthen efforts to collect dataabout all groups who may face difficultiesin accessing family planning: adolescents—including 10-to-14-year-olds—young people,boys and men, married adolescents, unmarriedpeople, older people, ethnic minorities, refugeesand migrants, sex workers, people living withHIV/AIDS and women and girls vulnerableto sexual violence in conflict zones or in areaswhere there have been natural disasters orhumanitarian crises. Data should routinely bedisaggregated by sex, age and ethnicity, andanalysed by wealth quintiles and should showdifferences between people living in rural andurban areas to shed light on how access varieswithin and across populations.Measurement and monitoring of access mustreflect everyone’s needs and experiences. Acombination of indicators would yield greaterinsights into inequalities in access by populationgroups. An analysis of the social equalitydimensions of health, for example, would helpto focus efforts where they are needed (Austveg,2011). A human rights focus to family planningrequires costing of demand-side programming.Singh and Darroch (2012) recommendsystematic data collection at the provider andfacility level to include indicators such as thenumber and training of staff, the range ofmethods offered, the consistency with which arange of contraceptive commodities is suppliedand the quality of care.104 CHAPTER 6: MAKING THE RIGHT TO FAMILY PLANNING UNIVERSAL