UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin leads a panel with H.E. The Baroness Verma, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for International Development, United Kingdom, H.E. Lambert Grins, Ambassador for Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights & HIV/AIDS, Netherlands and H.E. Dr. Som Ock Kingsada, Vice Minister, Ministry of Health, Lao People's Democratic Republic during a UNFPA Supplies event at the 2016 ICFP in Bali. 

Nusa Dua, Indonesia - UNFPA will host a high-level side event to call for solutions to the funding shortfall that is threatening family planning on the sidelines of the fourth International Conference on Family Planning in Bali on Monday.

UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin will lead the panel for the event, “Meeting Our Commitments, Averting a Family Planning Crisis”. He will be joined by H.E. Dr. Som Ock Kingsada, Vice Minister, Ministry of Health, Lao People's Democratic Republic, H.E. The Baroness Verma, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for International Development from the United Kingdom, H.E. Lambert Grins, Ambassador for Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights & HIV/AIDS from the Netherlands and Ms. Kosi Izundu, Education as a Vaccine Youth Leader from Nigeria. This panel will focus on the level of individual impact, and, with audience participation, will propose solutions for addressing changing aid environment and global health architecture that are threatening the family planning space.

Globally, this shortfall will impact commitments that have been made by governments and partners to increase access to reproductive health and rights. There is a high risk that the FP2020 goal to reach an additional 120 million women and girls with family planning by 2020 will not be achieved. Progress towards Sustainable Development Goals 3 (good health and well-being) and  5(gender equality), in particular, will be limited by this funding crisis.

With traditional donors significantly reducing aid and the funding available for family planning reducing even more significantly in proportion to overall funding, existing family planning services in the lowest income countries may not be sustained. Without access to family planning information and services, and through unintended pregnancies, girls may be forced to drop out of school, and women may have to give up income earning opportunities and lose their economic independence and aspirations.

Against this backdrop, UNFPA is holding this meeting of family planning stakeholders to discuss how the imminent crisis can be averted.