ABOUT FAMILY PLANNING 2020 | ABOUT THE LONDON SUMMIT |
FAMILY PLANNING DOCUMENTS

ABOUT FAMILY PLANNING 2020

By building partnerships and enhancing existing work, Family Planning 2020 will reach 120 million more women and girls in the world's poorest countries with access to voluntary family planning information, contraceptives, and services by 2020. FP2020 brings governments, donors, civil society, multilateral, technical and academic organizations together creating innovation and opportunity to advance family planning. FP2020 will complement and work closely with key partners and existing mechanisms and will contribute to the UN Secretary General's Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, 'Every Woman, Every Child', and its efforts to improve accountability.

Today, more than 200 million of women in developing countries want to avoid pregnancy but lack access to family planning and contraceptives. All women and girls have the right, and must have the means, to plan their own lives, including when and whether to have children. By enabling individuals to choose the number and spacing of their children, family planning has dramatically changed how women can seek education, empowerment and economic activity.

Contraceptives save lives. By 2020, if an additional 120 million women who want contraceptives could get them, this would cumulatively result in more than 100 million fewer unintended pregnancies, 3 million fewer babies dying in their first year of life and 200,000 fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth. This is a life and death crisis. Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death for women in Africa. Contraceptives are cost-effective and deliver big savings in healthcare costs. Every US dollar spent on family planning can result in savings of up to 6 dollars on health, housing, water, and other public services in Africa and up to $13 in South Asia.

About The London Summit on Family Planning

The UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with UNFPA, national governments, donors, civil society, the private sector, the research and development community, and others from across the world came together at the London Summit on Family Planning to support the right of women and girls to decide, freely and for themselves, whether, when and how many children they have. The Summit called for unprecedented global political commitments and resources that will enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. Reaching this goal could result in over 200,000 fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth and nearly 3 million fewer infants dying in their first year of life.


As well as providing family planning for an additional 120 million women in the world's poorest countries, the global community committed to sustaining coverage for the estimated 260 million women in these countries who are currently using contraceptives (as of June 2012). By 2020, the goal is to deliver contraceptives, information, and services to a total of 380 million women and girls in developing countries so they can plan their families.


To achieve these goals, the London Summit on Family Planning has called upon partners to work closely together across a range of areas, such as:

Family Planning Documents