LOOKING AHEAD

Leveraging promising pathways to accelerate progress toward family planning and reproductive health goals

MARCH 2025

Meeting targets for family planning and reproductive health services and rights, and enabling all women and couples to freely choose the number, timing, and spacing of their children, and the methods by which to do so, will underpin the achievement of all other sustainable development goals. With just five years remaining until the SDG deadline, the year 2025 represents a critical moment to re-commit to and re-invest in achieving family planning and reproductive health goals, particularly SDG 3.7. Overcoming the significant barriers that remain will require concerted, cross-sectoral collaboration, undertaken in a context-sensitive manner. Stakeholders in global public health and well-being can learn from success stories and struggles, and make use of innovative approaches and partnerships and replicable practices to meet family planning and reproductive health goals.

Key takeaways and recommendations for action include:

Prioritize and sustain funding for family planning

Secure sustainable funding pathways for family planning and reproductive care to reduce vulnerability to exogenous shocks such as conflict, pandemics and epidemics, or shifts in political will. A locally led approach, in which national governments coordinate relevant stakeholders and enshrine adequate budget for SRH activities—augmented by the input and investment of private-sector and non-governmental actors—can ensure long-term strategic prioritization and financing. Donor governments and multilateral institutions can support this process by working to transition into a secondary, supportive role in LMICs and under-resourced areas.
Integrate family planning and reproductive health services into universal health coverage plans and financing, as a fundamental aspect of health care. Integrated services enable cost-sharing, reduce barriers to access, and facilitate trust in health care providers, to improve health-seeking behaviors and reduce funding burdens. Strategic prioritization of family planning and better integration into primary health care needs to be led by governments in partnership with multilateral institutions, to catalyze the financing, technical expertise, and resources that are necessary to bolster these inter-connected services.
Invest in the transparency and reliability of financial flow data to support accountability, identify funding gaps, and strengthen resource allocation for family planning and reproductive health care. Governments can collaborate with multilateral and research institutions and philanthropies to expand financial and budget data systems. Reliable and timely financial tracking can improve donor and government accountability to help ensure that pledged funds are disbursed effectively.

Expand rights-based access to a range of contraceptives

Enshrine the sexual and reproductive rights, and the health, of all persons in national and international laws and policies, to support a rights-based approach to family planning and enable sensitive service delivery to marginalized and criminalized groups. Governments and international organizations are key to this process, and to the continued protection of the rights of women and girls, criminalized groups, and all individuals seeking family planning services and methods.
Expand access to the full range of modern contraceptive methods, with the aim of ensuring freedom of choice and eliminating unmet need for family planning. A rights-based approach to family planning and reproductive health must be based on accessibility to all appropriate methods of contraception, to meet the specific needs of individuals and communities. Governments and multilateral institutions can collaborate with the private sector to overcome barriers such as cost—through pooled procurement and economies of scale—and health worker training to ensure access even in poor and remote communities.
Ensure equitable access to family planning and reproductive health services for underserved populations including youth, unmarried persons, and communities in remote and rural areas. Investing in the reproductive health needs of young people can help break long-standing stigma around these services and encourage informed choices about their health, education, and careers, ultimately driving social and economic development. International and local non-governmental organizations can act as bridges to underserved groups and are key to local health systems strengthening, service delivery, advocacy, and information-sharing. Their feedback in designing innovative service delivery for underserved groups must be integrated into policies and programs.

Mobilize cross-sectoral and complementary partnerships

Invest in the collection of high-quality, comprehensive data on family planning and reproductive health, their multifaceted impacts, and the costs of inaction, around the world and in LMICs particularly. To ensure high quality, this data must be disaggregated by sex, age, and other indicators, to inform rigorous research and better track progress toward shared targets and goals. Research institutions and academics are critical to this process, including through the independent evaluation of impact, and by identifying cost-effective interventions.
Articulate the extended benefits of family planning and reproductive health outcomes within the context of global sustainable development and identify areas for fruitful cross-sectoral collaboration. Demonstrating that these goals represent an investment in global economic development, well-being, and climate change adaptation and mitigation can catalyze action and funding from a variety of traditional and unexpected sources. Researchers and NGOs operating at the grassroots level are key to identifying and demonstrating the long-term impact of family planning and reproductive health interventions, highlighting new sectors for integration and collaboration.
Pursue innovative collaborations, including public-private partnerships, to combine the complementary skills, expertise, and resources of different stakeholders in reproductive health and family planning, and improve service delivery at the national and local levels. The private sector, including pharmaceutical companies, health care providers, and technology firms, provides market-based approaches that help address supply, accessibility, and affordability barriers, while governments create regulatory and policy environments that facilitate impactful cross-sectoral partnerships.

These takeaways form a roadmap for accelerated progress that calls for collaborative action by a diversity of stakeholders, all of whom bring different, complementary strengths and resources to the challenge. In addition to the actions laid out above, closing gaps in unmet need and enshrining the right of all women and girls to choose the timing, spacing, and size of their families will require a concerted multistakeholder effort, not only to meet funding needs but also to provide the expertise and mobilize resources. Given the interconnected challenges and complex crises the world faces, business-as-usual efforts risk deepening inequities, undermining reproductive health, and delaying gender equality. Targeted, dedicated investment in family planning, however, can pay dividends, with multiple inter-generational returns on health, education, economic development, peace and security, and climate and environment. The 2030 SDG deadline provides a clear target for catalyzing action, but stakeholders across the public and private sectors need to work together to sustain progress and plan for the coming decades.

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By Isabel Schmidt (Senior Policy Analyst and Research Manager), Angeli Juani (Senior Policy and Quantitative Analyst), and Dr. Mayesha Alam (Senior Vice President of Research). Art direction and design by Sara Stewart, illustrations by Gilles & Cecilie.