Family planning policies and Irish Aid

Earlier this week, at the London Summit on Family Planning organised jointly by the British Government’s Department for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it was announced that the UK was doubling its efforts on family planning in the developing world to £180m per year, through direct and indirect support.

The UK has committed more than £500m over eight years to achieve the goal of enabling 120m people in poor countries to have access to modern methods of family planning by 2020.

As Prime Minister Cameron rightly stated, “a country cannot develop properly when its young women are dying from unintended pregnancy and when its children are dying in infancy.”