Bangladesh commits US$600M+ to family planning at summit

Recently, leaders from around the world, including Bangladesh, convened at the Family Planning Summit in London, United Kingdom, to make bold commitments that will help expand access to family planning to millions of women and girls worldwide. At the Summit, more than 60 governments and partners pledged commitments of at least US$2.5 billion by 2020, with the majority of the funding (US$1.5 billion) committed by countries in Asia and Africa.

At the Summit, the State Minister of Finance Honourable M A Mannan committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The recently approved Health Sector Programme, 2017-2021 will put the country on track to attaining the original FP2020 targets by 2030. Bangladesh commits to achieving its family planning objectives by implementing the post-partum action plan, regional family planning package for the lagging Sylhet and Chittagong divisions, and the national adolescent health strategy in a time-bound, efficient and effective manner. For this, the Government of Bangladesh will mobilise US$615 million for the family planning programme over 2017-2021, a 67% increase in allocation from that of the pre-2017 programme. Bangladesh will improve the quality of family planning services through a health systems approach, including by increasing training to service providers, deploying additional midwives to all sub-district hospitals and placing clinical teams to supervise family planning services in all districts. Additionally, Bangladesh will work with the private sector to help address gaps in service provision and will ensure a steady supply of commodities.

Bangladesh has over 3.5 million married and sexually active unmarried adolescents (aged 15-19) of whom 18% have an unmet need for contraception.