40 Years of U.S. International Family Planning

January 3, 2005

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Forty years ago a bipartisan group of House and Senate members, in partnership with key allies in the executive branch and private sector, teamed together to launch U.S. assistance for international family planning. These individuals recognized that slowing rapid population growth was essential to achieving broader development goals such as improved health care and the reduction of poverty, hunger and environmental stress.

Thanks to pioneering United States leadership, modest investments in international family planning have paid huge dividends. Population growth and birth rates have decreased. Access to reproductive health care has been expanded throughout the developing world. As a result, the quality of life for millions of people has improved remarkably in that short span of time.

By enabling couples to plan the size of their families, family planning programs help break the cycle of poverty. Mothers and their newborns are healthier. Girls are staying in school longer and avoiding early childbearing. More couples are able to prevent unwanted
pregnancy and abortion, as well as sexually transmitted infections such as hiv/aids. Family planning programs are also helping to ease growing population pressures on cropland, freshwater, and other natural resources.

As we look ahead to the next forty years, the challenges are great. With one-half of the world’s population under the age of 25, family planning programs are experiencing unprecedented pleas for contraceptives and basic health care. Unfortunately, this comes at a time when bipartisan support for these programs has waned. In fact, U.S. funding for international family planning has fallen 35 percent in the past ten years alone, while restrictive policies have severely hampered access to much-needed care. We cannot afford to allow this trend to continue.

Population Action International, which also is proudly marking its 40th anniversary this year, hopes that tonight’s celebration will signal a reinvigorated awareness that family planning and reproductive health must be a cornerstone of U.S. development policies.

We hope this exhibition of photographs taken during our Congressional Study Tours over the years, each of which tells a different story about the importance of family planning, will energize and inspire you as much as they do all of us at Population Action International.

Dr. John H. Gibbons
Chair

Amy Coen
President

Read timeline and photographs in PDF.