Recently, the UN and World Bank have expressed concern because family planning funding is falling off the radar of development aid in low-income countries.

“New preliminary figures from the World Bank show that official global development aid for health increased from $2.9 billion in 1995 to $14.1 billion in 2007, or roughly a five-fold increase in 12 years.

During the same period, aid for population and reproductive health made a more modest increase from $901 million to $1.9 billion.”

This is particularly worrying because need has been increasing, and because financial crisis-based cuts at the family planning/reproductive health budgets could make this gap more drastic.

The problem is not that family planning money is not effective towards helping women and girls, and therefore society in general, but because it is not seen as a “necessity” when it comes to development aid. However, the politicization of the issue and the view that women’s health is a secondary matter is deadly- literally. What the UN and World Bank are scared of is even more escalating rates of maternal mortality in the developing world because of lack of reproductive health services. And this will happen, unless reproductive health and family planning are seen as core parts of a society’s health and development.

The US is making steps towards raising our budget, and that is exciting- remind your Senators and Representatives today that international family planning funding  is not about helping people have better sex lives (although it can)- it is about saving lives.