23 March 2010, London

Funding for family planning essential if Canadian G8 initiative is to succeed for poor women in poor countries.

Amidst continuing confusion over priorities and funding for a new G8 maternal and child health initiative, and specifically whether it will include family planning, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is calling for the G8 to show their unequivocal support for family planning as part of a comprehensive approach saving the lives of women and their families.

Dr. Gill Greer, Director General of the IPPF, said:

“The evidence is indisputable: family planning saves lives.  Too many women and girls die in pregnancy and childbirth because they had no access to good health services including family planning. Family planning is crucial to achieving better maternal and child health. There is already global consensus that the ability to plan if, and when to become pregnant, must be central to efforts to improve maternal, newborn and child health. No country has made significant inroads to improving maternal, newborn and child health without also ensuring widespread access to family planning.”

The Guttmacher Institute states that

“the direct health benefits of meeting the need for both family planning and maternal and newborn health services would be dramatic. Unintended pregnancies would drop by more than two thirds, from 75 million in 2008 to 22 million per year. Seventy percent of maternal deaths would be averted - a decline from 550,000 to 160,000. Forty-four percent of newborn deaths would be averted - a decline from 3.5 million to 1.9 million.”

Only by fully funding family planning can this be realized.

Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, announced in January that the Canadian Government would use its presidency of the G8 in 2010 to launch a maternal and child health initiative. 

With few details emerging since then speculation has been rife that reproductive health, and family planning, would be excluded in the new initiative.

Last week Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawrence Cannon, indicated that Canadian policy was to exclude family planning from the G8 initiative, stating, "It does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives."


This was later clarified by Prime Minister Harper, who stated that his Government was “...not closing the door to any option, and that includes contraception..." However, he declined to confirm that his Government agreed that contraception saves lives and is central to any successful efforts to improve maternal and child health. 

He also declined to say if family planning would be supported as a central component of the G8 initiative, so helping to address the impact of significantly reduced international funding for family planning since 1997.

While welcoming this renewed focus on maternal health as a critical step to achieving MDG 5, IPPF remains concerned that while family planning is not now specifically excluded, it is not specifically included or prioritized within the initiative. 

The omission of family planning and contraception from a global maternal health initiative would be disastrous for women, especially poor women in poor countries where maternal mortality and ill-health are highest.

Dr. Greer, continued:

“International Funding for family planning has declined dramatically, from US$653m in 1997 to only US$394m in 2006. The result: 215 million women around the world who want to plan their families cannot access family planning services and only 18% of women in Africa have access to family planning services.  Given the importance of family planning to women’s health we should not therefore be surprised that pregnancy and childbirth cause 500,000 plus avoidable deaths each and every year, or that they are the major causes of death for 15-19 year old girls.

“If the G8 maternal health initiative excludes family planning we will not only be failing these women but millions more.  This situation would be unacceptable in G8 countries and should be equally unacceptable for poor women in poor countries?”

Only last year all G8 leaders endorsed the Consensus for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, which stipulates that

“comprehensive family planning advice, services and supplies” are critical to improving maternal, newborn and child health. 

IPPF is urging the G8 to fulfil its repeated commitments to maternal and newborn health by ensuring family planning is central to its proposed new initiative.

For further information please contact:

Paul Bell at pbell@ippf.org
or +44 (0) 20 7939 8233
or +44 (0) 7799 335533 (cell)

Matthew Lindley at mlindley@ippf.org
or +44 (0) 20 7939 8215