page_title: Family planning
section_title: Human rights, development and climate
hierarchical_section_title: Family planning / Human rights, development and climate
caption_attribution_description: English: World map of countries by GDP per capita (nominal) for 2018. &#160; &gt;$60,000 &#160; $50,000 - $60,000 &#160; $40,000 - $50,000 &#160; $30,000 - $40,000 &#160; $20,000 - $30,000 &#160; $10,000 - $20,000 &#160; $5,000 - $10,000 &#160; $2,500 - $5,000 &#160; $1,000 - $2,500 &#160; &lt;$1,000
context_page_description: Family planning services are defined as "educational, comprehensive medical or social activities which enable individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved". Family planning may involve consideration of the number of children a woman wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, as well as the age at which she wishes to have them. These matters are influenced by external factors such as marital situation, career considerations, financial position, and any disabilities that may affect their ability to have children and raise them. If sexually active, family planning may involve the use of contraception and other techniques to control the timing of reproduction.
  Other aspects of family planning include sex education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and management, and infertility management. Family planning, as defined by the United Nations and the World Health Organization, encompasses services leading up to conception.
context_section_description: Some consider access to safe, voluntary family planning to be a human right and to be central to gender equality, women's empowerment and poverty reduction. Over the past 50 years, right-based family planning has enabled the cycle of poverty to be broken resulting in millions of women and children's lives being saved.
  The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says that, “Some 225 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe and effective family planning methods, for reasons ranging from lack of access to information or services to lack of support from their partners or communities.”  UNFPA says that, “Most of these women with an unmet need for contraceptives live in 69 of the poorest countries on earth.” 
  
  UNFPA says that, 
  Global consensus that family planning is a human right was secured at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, in Principle 8 of the Programme of Action: 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.
  As part of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) universal access to family planning is one of the key factors contributing to development and reducing poverty. Family planning creates benefits in areas such as, gender quality and women's health, access to sexual education and higher education, and improvements in maternal and child health. Note that the Millennium Development Goals have been superseded by the Sustainable Development Goals.
  UNFPA and the Guttmacher Institute say that,
  Serving all women in developing countries that currently have an unmet need for modern contraceptives would prevent an additional 54 million unintended pregnancies, including 21 million unplanned births, 26 million abortions and seven million miscarriages; this would also prevent 79,000 maternal deaths and 1.1 million infant deaths.
  Since climate change is directly proportional to the number of humans, family planning has a significant impact on climate change. The research project Drawdown estimates that family planning is the seventh most efficient action against climate change (ahead of solar farms, nuclear power, afforestation and many other actions).
caption: Countries by 2018 GDP (nominal) per capita.[45]
exif: {}