Poor Countries Losing Out on Family Planning Benefits
Source: World Bank

A new World Bank report today warns that poor countries, wealthy donors, and aid agencies are losing sight of the value of contraception, family planning, and other reproductive health programs in helping to boost economic growth, and reduce high birth rates which are strongly linked with endemic poverty, poor education, and high numbers of maternal and infant deaths.

According to the new report—Population Issues in the 21st Century: The Role of the World Bank—35 countries, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, have birth rates of more than five children per mother, and that of the estimated 210 million women who become pregnant every year worldwide, more than 500,000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth, and about one in five of them resorts to abortion because of poor access to contraception. The report says that some 68,000 women die each year as a result of unsafe abortion, 5.3 million suffer temporary or permanent disability, and many end up being ostracized within their own communities.

+ Full Report (PDF; 8.42 MB)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 am and is filed under Children and families, Health and healthcare, International, Social and cultural issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.