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It's a right, let's make it real - World Population Day 2008 countdown

About The World Population Day and this Year Theme

On 11 July 2008, people around the world celebrate the 19th World Population Day. The Day's inception in 1989 by the UNFPA Governing Council prompted its endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly as an opportunity to build better awareness of population issues and their relation to development.

Forty years ago, world leaders proclaimed that individuals have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children. Forty years later, contraception and family planning information remain out of reach for hundreds of millions of women, men and young people. Unmet need is extreme among the poor and marginalized. Hence the theme for World Population Day is "It's a right, let's make it real."

In 1968, the International Year for Human Rights, United Nations Member States recognized the right of individuals and couples to decide their family size. In 2008, four decades later, how is the right promoted in your country?

Every country can tell a story about how the right was won. Champions of this hard-won right will always remember; World Population Day is about ensuring that future generations never forget. Today's young people are urgently in need of quality family planning information and services, with more than 1 billion young people aged 15-24 entering their reproductive years. More than 80 per cent of these young people live in developing countries.

Family planning is now a fundamental part of life worldwide. But funding is down while demand is up. Lack of funding affects young people most of all. This public health intervention with proven results is often overlooked and underestimated. It's also a matter of human rights denied.

"When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life."
-Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA Executive Director

"UNFPA will focus on the urgent need to re-energize family planning programmes including their integration within comprehensive reproductive health services."
-UNFPA Strategic Plan 2008-2011

Messages

The theme for World Population Day 2008 is "It's a right, let's make it real." Theme: The right to plan your family is among the rights and fundamental freedoms that apply to every person, everywhere. Its protection and promotion is the responsibility of Governments. Two United Nations conferences, one on population and development in Cairo in 1994 and one on women in Beijing in 1995, placed family planning in the context of "reproductive health". Family planning gives choice to all people on the number and spacing of children, and it gives women greater freedom. Every country has its story to tell about hard-won rights. Yet, this right has not been realized for millions of people who are poor, disenfranchised, marginalized and young.

The theme contains severeal topics:

1. Improve access to family planning, including contraceptives.
   This is how countries can make the right real. Many countries are working to improve access in communities to affordable, good quality family planning information and services. Individuals may have the right to plan their families but unless they have access to contraceptives, the right is not real. Services must reach out to underserved groups such as the poor, adolescents, the disabled, minorities, and other marginalized populations. In particular, access to family planning information and contraceptives is often very difficult for young people.
   
   The trend is to integrate family planning into general health services to make it more broadly accessible. Comprehensive reproductive health services also help to address the causes of miscarriage and infertility, another aspect of family planning. Integrated family planning and HIV/AIDS programmes also promise to reach more people in need of information and services.
   
   
2. Family planning saves lives.
   Ensuring access to voluntary family planning could reduce maternal deaths by a third, and child deaths by as much as 20 per cent. Researchers estimate that access to family planning could save the lives of about 175,000 women each year. The use of modern contraception in the developing world prevents 2.7 million infant deaths annually. Increasing birth intervals to two years could also prevent the deaths of one million or more children under 5. No woman should die giving life. And certainly not because she's poor. Of the 536,000 women who die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications each year, 99 per cent are in developing countries. Africa accounts for more than half such deaths. Countries with the highest levels of maternal deaths have made the least progress towards reducing it. A woman in Africa has a 1 in 26 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth, compared with 1 in 7,300 for a woman in the rich world.
   
   Preventing unwanted pregnancy reduces recourse to abortion. About 90 per cent of abortion-related deaths and disabilities worldwide could be avoided if women who wished to avoid or postpone pregnancy had access to effective contraception. Poor women are the most vulnerable: Of all unsafe abortions, 97 per cent occur in developing countries, an estimated 19 million each year. Every year, an estimated 68,000 women die as the result of unsafe abortions and a further 5.3 million women suffer disabilities.
   
   
3. It's good for families.
   Smaller, healthier families can save for education and have a better chance at escaping from poverty. Family planning can increase women's educational, work, and life opportunities by preventing too early pregnancies. Young girls can stay in school, and mothers will have more time and energy to care for their families and to join in the social and economic life of their communities. Productivity will increase when millions of women can plan their families and plan their lives. Birth spacing benefits both mothers' and children's health, and enables mothers to devote more attention to their children. It also reduces the risk of death and disability from pregnancy and childbirth too early or too late in a woman's reproductive life. Emphasizing these benefits can lead to greater acceptance of family planning.
   
   
4. Slower population growth supports sustainability.
   Slower population growth reduces strain on social service budgets, and lightens the impact on the natural environment. Also, with fewer dependents per worker, more savings supports more economic growth. Voluntary family planning has a successful track record of reducing unintended pregnancies, thereby slowing population growth. The United Nations projects world population to rise by 2.5 billion people from today's 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This, according to the UN, assumes that fertility will continue falling, especially in developing countries. However, if fertility remains at current rates, the world will add about 5 billion people, nearing 12 billion by 2050. Family planning is essential to fighting poverty, yet we are failing to meet the needs of the poorest. Poverty deepens and the environment suffers when individuals can't choose the size of their family. Preventing of unwanted pregnancies today through family planning might be one of the most cost-effective ways to preserve the planet's environment for the future. Greater investment in family planning is one of the most cost-effective ways poor countries can make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. In contrast, continued rapid population growth poses a significant threat to poverty reduction.
   
   
5. Access to information and contraceptives protects young people.
   The more information they have, the safer they will be. Pregnancy- and childbirth-related complications are the number-one killers of girls 15-19 years old in developing countries. The highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) worldwide are among young people aged 15 to 24; some 500,000 become infected daily (excluding HIV). More than half of new HIV infections occur in young people age 15-24. UNFPA addresses adolescent pregnancy through action to reach marginalized girls, increase age at marriage, keep girls in school, build their life skills, and provide access to contraceptives and other sexual and reproductive health services including HIV prevention. Young people often do not have access to separate, confidential youth-friendly services that offer the information and services they need.
   
   
6. Family planning services enhance HIV prevention.
   Family planning information and services can dramatically improve HIV prevention, especially when programmes are integrated. HIV infection is a risk before, during and after pregnancy. At all times, access to condoms is essential. Condoms offer dual protection from HIV infection and unintended pregnancy. Family planning services can help women remain HIV-free. Family planning services can help HIV-positive women to avoid pregnancy if and when they wish to do so. A study in rural Uganda found that 90 percent of women living with HIV who were pregnant did not wish to have more children.
   
   It is now estimated that family planning services in sub-Saharan Africa are preventing HIV infection in more infants than is the provision of an anti-HIV drug (nevirapine). It is also more cost-effective. Analysis suggests that adding family planning to ongoing services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in 14 high-prevalence countries could double the number of HIV-positive births averted.
   
   
7. Meet the unmet need of women who want to delay or avoid pregnancy:
   An estimated 200 million women worldwide want to delay or avoid pregnancy but are not using safe and effective family planning. Their reasons vary. Perhaps their husband disagrees, there's no clinic nearby, or they lack information about the risk of becoming pregnant. But there's another reason behind this unmet need: women in developing countries lack access to contraceptive choice. Surveys find that five popular methods (e.g., pills, injectables, IUDs, condoms and implants) are not available to millions of women. About 350 million women are not able to obtain the contraceptive method that is most widely available in their country. About 500 million women cannot even obtain third choice: Over half of all women of reproductive age in the developing world lack access to their country's third most available method. Access to a variety of safe, effective and affordable methods ensures that women are free to choose a method that suits their needs. Expanding contraceptive choice starts with increasing access to existing methods and improving quality of care.
   
   Demand for family planning is growing. The burgeoning numbers of young people entering childbearing age combined with the increasing adoption of contraceptives adds up to growing demand for family planning. Researchers project that demand for contraception will grow by 40 per cent during the next 15 years. To meet unmet need, modern contraceptive methods must be more accessible. In nine sub-Saharan African countries, over 30 per cent of married women have no access to contraceptives. In 15 more countries, it's 20 per cent to 30 per cent. Meeting the unmet need for family planning could reduce fertility by 35 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 20 per cent in the Arab States, eastern and southern Africa, and 15 per cent in Asia and West Africa.
   
   
8. Raise awareness so even more people seek family planning:
   Raising awareness of family planning's many benefits not only broadens social support but also motivates individuals to seek information and services. Education that reaches women and girls advances their human right to plan their family. Behaviour change communication, including client education, community mobilization and mass media can motivate individuals to seek family planning services. It also helps to remove economic barriers that discourage individuals from seeking family planning services, for example by compensating clients' out-of-pocket costs and waiving fees. These activities will raise demand for family planning even higher.
   
   
9. 9. Fund family planning:
   Family planning is now seriously under-funded by donors and developing country governments. World population has grown by about a billion since the Cairo Conference in 1994 and we have the largest-ever young peoples' generation in history, yet funds for family planning remain limited. The UNFPA 2008-2011 Strategic Plan notes that the decrease in funding for family planning will affect young people disproportionately.
   
   To meet the unmet need for contraceptives, global population assistance should now exceed US $1.2 billion per year for family planning and increase to over $1.6 billion by 2015. Current assistance is $550 million, which is less than half of today's needed amount. The G8 promised in 2007 to allocate $1.5 billion in funding for "maternal and child health and voluntary family planning" Advocacy should make clear links between poverty, sustainable development and family planning. Most developing countries, especially the poorest in Africa, will continue to rely on contraceptives supplied by international donors for the foreseeable future. The sustainability of reproductive health services depends on government allocation of funds for family planning.
   
   
10. Ensure supplies:
    The right to determine family size cannot be fully exercised without essential reproductive health supplies, including contraceptives. Inadequate supplies and increasing demand pose serious challenges to family planning programmes. Family planning needs will grow as both population and demand increase. Failing to meet the need is unacceptable: Every minute, 190 women confront the possibility of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy-one that could have been easily prevented if only they had access to contraceptives. Every minute, 650 people contract a sexually transmitted infection and nearly 10 are newly infected with HIV because they could not obtain condoms. There is some good news. An increasing number of countries report that service delivery points now stock at least three modern methods of contraception. The number of UNFPA partner countries allocating their own fund for contraceptive purchases increased to 66 in 2006, up from 34 in 2004.
    
    
11. Promote reproductive health commodity security (RHCS):
    RHCS is fundamental to family planning. It can help solve problems of access to contraceptives in several ways. RHCS activities ensure supplies, contribute to a supportive policy environment, and raise awareness that increases use of and demand for contraceptives. UNFPA supports country efforts to mainstream RHCS within their health systems. Progress on reproductive health commodities, including contraceptives, is being made in many countries. Efforts are focused on establishing national coordinating bodies, instituting national budget lines for commodities, and making sure these commodities are included in essential drugs lists. UNFPA also works with partners to support training for health care providers on contraceptive technology, and to promote quality of care. Through RHCS, a country can increase its contraceptive prevalence rate and start to reverse the impact of maternal death and disability and HIV/AIDS. UNFPA works with partners to provide the right quantities of the right products in the right condition in the right place at the right time for the right price.
    
    
12. Family planning is an unfinished success story:
    Worldwide, the use of modern contraceptive methods has increased from 10 per cent to 65 per cent over the past 45 years. Since the 1960s, family planning has reduced fertility in developing countries from an average of six births per woman to three. National family planning policies and programmes are established in nearly every country. Family planning programmes have a record of success in reducing unintended pregnancies, thereby slowing population growth. But in 56 developing countries, the poorest women still average six births, compared to 3.2 in the wealthiest fifth. In the least developed countries (LDCs) and among the poorest populations many women remain unprotected against unintended pregnancies.
    

The ICPD and Millennium Development Goals

Individuals have the right to plan their family. United Nations sources have this to say about voluntary family planning:

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo called on all countries to take steps to meet the family planning needs of their populations and to provide, by 2015, universal access to a full range of safe and reliable family planning methods.

"Everyone has the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. States should take all appropriate measures to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, universal access to health-care services, including those related to reproductive health care, which includes family planning and sexual health. All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so."
-ICPD Principle 8

"The aim of family-planning programmes must be to enable couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to do so and to ensure informed choices and make available a full range of safe and effective methods."
-ICPD paragraph 7.12

Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals is tracked using several indicators directly related to family planning and the use of contraceptives. Family planning and reproductive health contribute, directly or indirectly, to achieving each and every one of the eight Millennium Development Goals.

For Goal 5, Improve Maternal Health, among the indicators for monitoring progress are "contraceptive prevalence rate" and "adolescent birth rate" and "unmet need for family planning". These indicators measure progress towards Target 5.B. Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.

For Goal 6, Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, among the indicators for monitoring progress is "condom use at last high-risk sex". This indicator measures progress towards Target 6.A. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.

UNFPA and Family Planning

UNFPA advances the right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so.

Improving access to voluntary family planning is central to the UNFPA mandate. UNFPA works with countries to increase contraceptive prevalence and to prevent, control and treat sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The Fund promotes family planning as a means to reduce unsafe abortion, and helps countries to care for women suffering from complications of unsafe abortion.

UNFPA is the largest procurer of condoms in the public sector, and works with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS to help meet the need. UNFPA advocates for increased national investment in family planning services, promotes reproductive health commodity security and supports efforts to expand the choice of methods, improve the quality of services, increase the number of service delivery points and increase national capacity in commodity security. Access to information and services for adolescents is an advocacy priority.

With an increasing focus on national policy and capacity development, UNFPA country offices work closely with government counterparts to incorporate family planning into national and international legislative instruments and within national development frameworks such as sector-wide programmes, poverty reduction strategies and Millennium Development Goals reports.

Links to Online Resources

New UNFPA family planning fact sheets

These fact sheets highlight many major issues and provide current UNFPA-approved statistics. One fact sheet offers an overview, and the others cover family planning and maternal health, family planning and the environment, family planning and young people, and family planning and poverty.
http://www.unfpa.org/rh/planning/mediakit/

Web pages providing UNFPA position and approach

Family planning: so that every pregnancy is wanted
http://www.unfpa.org/rh/planning.htm
No woman should die giving life (maternal health)
http://www.unfpa.org/safemotherhood
Supporting Adolescents and Youth
http://www.unfpa.org/adolescents/index.htm
Making Motherhood Safer
http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/index.htm
Securing Essential Supplies (commodities)
http://www.unfpa.org/supplies/index.htm
http://www.unfpa.org/supplies/family.htm
Family planning and humanitarian assistance (emergencies)
http://www.unfpa.org/emergencies/motherhood.htm#family

UNFPA publications

Meeting the Need: Strengthening Family Planning Programmes (PATH, UNFPA, 2006)
http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=309
Family Planning and HIV/AIDS in Women and Children (WHO and UNFPA, 2006)
http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=289
Giving Girls Today and Tomorrow: Breaking the Cycle of Adolescent Pregnancy (UNFPA 2007)
http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=346&filterListType=1

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