Significant Ottawa Backing for Third World Family Planning
(April 20, 2016, OTTAWA, ON.) International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau’s March 7 funding announcement to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), followed by her March 15 speech noting the importance of enabling women to plan and space their pregnancies, mark a significant advance in Canada’s official position on contraception and the importance of family planning.
Population Institute Canada welcomes these first steps toward advancing reproductive health, human rights, gender equality and improving living standards in the developing world.
We will continue to campaign for the government to adopt the further step of making the full range of family planning a significant, integral part of its overseas assistance.
While applauding the government’s initiatives, PIC stresses that the amounts committed are small considering the enormity of need and potential benefits.
The ballooning human population (an additional 80 million people annually) and over consumption are major contributors to the increasing environmental stresses of our planet.
These could be alleviated by providing universal access to voluntary family planning, which the UN has stated “… could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology available to the human race.”
Address by Minister Bibeau on adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights
Government funding announcement
Government backgrounder on Canada’s support for UNFPA to help women and girls
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