Countdown 2015 Europe partners are pleased to announce a series of events across Europe, entitled “Advance Human Rights, Invest in Family Planning”.
At least 225 million women worldwide are not using any form of modern contraception although they would like to, meaning that they have an unmet need for family planning. This lack of access affects many areas of human development, including gender equality and poverty reduction, but has the most direct impact on women’s and children’s health. Serving all women in developing countries that currently have an unmet need for modern contraceptive methods would prevent an additional 54 million unintended pregnancies, including 21 million unplanned births, 26 million abortions (of which 16 million would be unsafe) and 7 million miscarriages; this would also prevent 79,000 maternal deaths and 1.1 million infant deaths. No other investment can match these numbers.
In July 2012, the London Family Planning Summit called for action to give women and adolescent girls greater freedom to access family planning services wherever they are in the world. The summit culminated in a series of FP2020 pledges, with donor and recipient countries committing to increasing financial and political support for family planning to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. This was a great achievement, but it needs ongoing follow-up to ensure accountability.
As 2016 marks the halfway point to 2020, Countdown 2015 Europe would like to invite stakeholders around Europe to reflect on achievements so far and recommit to reaching the goal. In this context, our partner organisations are holding series of events from May till September 2016 around Europe calling for advancement of human rights and investment in family planning.
Follow us on Twitter @C2015Europe to learn more about the upcoming events and join the conversation #Stand4FP
