State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

CHAPTERFIVEThe costs and savingsof upholding the rightto family planningTo uphold human rights and to reap the benefits of family planning for theeconomic and social well-being of individuals, households, communities andnations, expanding access to family planning is essential. But how much will thiscost? Treating family planning as a right has important implications for developmentpolicy and for the sustainable development framework that will in 2015 succeed theMillennium Development Goals. The normative dimension of human rightstMwanasha, along withnearly 200 women,gather under theshade of a Balboabtree. They’ve comefor contraceptives,which for many ofthem can save theirlives and transformtheir families' futures.In Malawi, one in 36women die in childbirthcompared to one in4,600 in the UK.©Lindsay Mgbor/UK Department forInternational Developmentbrings about a radical shift by moving familyplanning strategies from the realm of policycommitment and economic pragmatism to therealm of obligations and the setting of red flagsin dealing with complex policy tradeoffs.On the pragmatic economic side, however,it requires a look at the economic and budgetaryimplications of the obligation of equalityand non-discrimination in fiscal and budgetarypolicies, for example, the impact of user fees ortaxes on the affordability on contraceptive services.It also requires a focus on the obligationof progressive realization over time in relationto budgetary allocations across sectors as part ofthe national budget.Estimates of the costs have not generally takenthis rights perspective, though they are certainlynot in conflict with it. They have tended tofocus on the demographic characteristics of thepopulation, its age structure and how this incombination with unmet need generates numbersof potential family planning clients.Growing needThe need for family planning will grow as thenumber of people entering their reproductiveyears increases in the near future, especiallyin the poorest countries. About 15 per centof women of reproductive age in developingcountries wish to delay their next birth or ceasechildbearing but are not currently using modernmethods of contraception (Singh and Darroch,2012). Their right to family planning is thereforeat risk.“Unmet need,” according to the widelyaccepted definition, is not as high in richercountries. Yet “unintendedness” is a term thatapplies to a significant proportion of births inrich and poor countries alike. The lowest rateof unintendedness is 30 per cent in WesternTHE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 201287