Just in time for World Population Day, an annual observance intended to “focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues,” the U.S. House of Representatives voted up a foreign assistance appropriations package that guts U.S. investment in voluntary family planning and reproductive health around the world.
This July 11, the United Nations is expected to release its latest round of global population projections. While some regions are grappling with aging, shrinking populations, the dominant global trend is growth. The world’s population grew by roughly 75 million people in 2023, and overall growth is projected to continue for decades.
Continued growth is partly due to unintended pregnancy, which accounts for roughly half of pregnancies worldwide and is radically unequally distributed, concentrated in many places that are least equipped to handle it. The world could benefit most from greater investment in voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs.
That’s why the recent House vote is so disappointing. It slashes and restricts precisely those programs that enable people in the hardest-hit places to avoid unintended pregnancy and improve their overall health and well-being.
For example, in Niger, located in Africa’s conflict-riven Sahel region, 42 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Land degradation and limited access to arable land and water affect food security, with 47 percent of children under the age of five malnourished. Yet the population is growing fast at about 3.7 percent annually. If left unchanged, this would double Niger’s population in 19 years, affecting not only economic and food security but also education, health care, climate resilience and governance.
Often, a closer look at population growth hotspots shines a light on inequities. They show us where women and girls face limitations on their rights and opportunities, especially regarding their education and their reproductive choices and care.
This deep interconnection between gender equality issues and population trends was recognized and enshrined in policy 30 years ago at the International Conference on Population and Development. The conference centered a rights-based approach to population issues. It affirmed that people everywhere have the right to determine the number, timing and spacing of childbearing, and deserve access to the information and services needed to exercise that right.
The U.S. government joined 178 other nations in adopting the conferences Program of Action, including agreeing on a framework to finance those services.
Fast forward 30 years, and the conference’s work is more relevant than ever. Yet the U.S. is backpedaling on its financial commitment. It is a self-defeating disinvestment, because family planning is a “best buy” for health and development globally. Every dollar invested in meeting unmet demand for contraceptives can yield up to $120 in accrued annual benefits, according to Family Planning 2020 (including $30-$50 “from reduced infant and maternal mortality” and $60-$100 “in long-term benefits from economic growth”).
The U.S. was formerly a global leader in funding international family planning. But since 2010, U.S. funding has stagnated at around $600 million a year, with no adjustment for inflation, even as the number of people of reproductive age swelled to a record high. This was little more than one-third of the “fair share” annual investment of $1.7 billion that advocates say the U.S. should make, and unfortunately, it has become a kind of customary floor. Last week’s vote signaled the collapse of even that insufficient floor, with the House slashing another 23 percent in funding, to just $461 million.
Today, the largest generation of young people in the planet’s history is entering its reproductive years. The need is greater than ever before. This is exactly the wrong time to cut international family planning and reproductive health funding.
Persistent overall population growth, and radical disparity in how it is distributed, tells us we still have a lot of work to do to implement the vision of the International Conference on Population and Development. We know how to achieve it; it takes sufficient commitment and “fair share” investment. The rights and lives of many millions hang in the balance.
Kathleen Mogelgaard is the president and CEO of the Population Institute.