Family Planning: USA shows the way

2011 Family Planning Budget Request Largest Ever

The family planning needs of millions of women and men in developing nations will be addressed if President Obama's $715.7 million budget proposal for bilateral and multilateral international family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) assistance is approved. This would be a $67 million or a 10% increase above the $648.5 million that Congress appropriated in the omnibus spending bill in mid-December.

In light of the difficult economic and budgetary climate, and the stagnant levels during the Bush administration, the proposed increase is especially significant If appropriated by Congress, it would be the largest funding for international FP/RH programs—not accounting for inflation—ever approved and 54% increase over FY 2008.

$666 million would be for bilateral programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID), which provides family planning assistance in more than 50 countries. $50 million is proposed for a U.S. contribution to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which provides critical FP/RH care in more than 150 countries. This is a $5 million cut from the current contribution to the UNFPA.

28% would be devoted to "efforts to meet urgent global challenges such as natural and manmade disasters, poverty, disease, malnutrition, and threats of further instability from climate change and rapid population growth. . . These investments improve people's lives and makes them less vulnerable to the ravages of poverty and the threat of instability that extreme poverty breeds. Improving the most basic human conditions not only reflects our values; it enhances our security. Left unmet, these conditions lead too often to conflict, instability, and failed states."

Also released was a Global Health Initiative (GHI) document - http://www.pepfar.gov/documents/organization/136504.pdf, detailing how the GHI will dedicate new resources and funding, totaling $63 billion over six years, which includes goals and targets to prevent 54 million unintended pregnancies through increasing modern contraceptive prevalence to 35% in assisted countries and reducing the number of first births to women under 18.

The Obama administration's three highest non-security-related funding priorities in its budget request—global health, climate change, and hunger and food security—are all inextricably linked with demographic trends and population and family planning issues.

Over 215 million women in developing countries who want to space or limit childbearing will still be beyond reach of modern contraception, despite these proposed USA funding increase.