Contraception: drive to increase use by women in poorest countries is stalling, report finds

A global push to boost the number of women and girls using modern contraception by 2020 in some of the world’s poorest countries is failing, a report has concluded.1

Published by the global partnership Family Planning 2020, the report found that the number of women in 69 of the world’s lowest income countries using modern contraception rose by 46 million in the past six years to reach 317 million. However, to attain the goal of an additional 120 million users by 2020, another 74 million women would have to be reached in the next two years.

“Looking at projected trends, the hill is simply too steep to climb in the two short years remaining in this initiative,” the report …