Philanthropist Melinda Gates told delegates at a global summit she was “deeply troubled” by President Donald Trump’s decision to slash funding for family planning around the world.

“This is a difficult political climate for family planning. I’m deeply troubled, as I’m sure you are, by the Trump administration’s proposed budget slash,” she said during opening remarks at Tuesday’s Family Planning 2020 conference, held in London. The Trump administration included no funding for international family planning in its budget proposal released in May.

Melinda and Bill Gates have previously condemned the executive order signed by Trump to impose the so-called ‘global gag rule’, also known as the Mexico City policy, which prevents U.S. money going to international groups who provide abortions. Every Republican President since Reagan has imposed the ban, while Democrat Presidents have regularly lifted it.

Governments, private companies and donors committed at least $2.5bn to support family planning at the summit, according to organizers. The U.K. government announced Tuesday it would give an additional $58m dollars per year in its foreign aid budget to support family planning, a move that minister Priti Patel said would save the life of a woman every 90 minutes.

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Canada also promised to use $241m to reach 120 million around the world who are in need of safe access to contraception. India pledged to spend $3bn within its own country to target eight states that needed access to safe contraceptive methods.

Kate Gilmore, the UN Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights, told TIME that no woman should have to die from preventable issues. “No girl should be put in a position where she doesn’t have the right to decide what she does with her own body,” she added.

The Family Planning 2020 conference brought together delegates from over twenty countries to discuss how women and girls across the world can access and benefit from modern contraception. The conference first met in 2012 with the aim of ensuring that 120 million women and girls use modern contraceptives by 2020. Organizers say that 30 million have so far started to do this.

For the first time, Haiti, South Sudan and Chad pledged to make commitments to improve family planning in their own countries. “In the end we realised that the best remedy against the death of mothers, the only remedy, is family planning,” said Minister Ngarmbatina Odimbeye Soukaté, Minister of Public Health from the Republic of Chad.

Contact us at editors@time.com.</s>health

Updated: Jul 11, 2017 13:27 IST

More than 60 governments and partners committed US$2.5 billion in funding by 2020 to expand access to family planning to millions of adolescents and women at the Family Planning Summit in London on Tuesday.

A major chunk of the funding – US$1.5 billion – has been committed by countries in Asia and Africa to accelerate family planning services and .

“Contraceptives one of the greatest anti-poverty innovations the world has ever known and one of the smartest investments countries can make,” said Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which co-hosted the summit with the UK Government, UNFPA and the United Nations Population Fund.

India committed to increase modern contraceptive usage to meet 74% of the demand for modern contraceptives by 2020. Around 45 million women in the reproductive age of 15-49 years who need contraceptives do not have access to it.

Three new contraceptive methods have been added to those available free under the family planning programme and service delivery has been strengthened to revitalise social marketing. Family planning allocation in the reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health budget is expected to exceed US$ 2 billion by 2020.

“For most of my life, I’ve used contraceptives…. My family, my career, and my life are the direct result of having access to contraceptives. Now, contraceptives are a personal issue, but they’re also a global one. They’re an essential part of the healthier, more prosperous world we’re all dreaming about,” said Melinda.

The London Summit reaffirms international political support for women and girls to be able to decide for themselves whether, when and how many children to have and addresses barriers to access.

Contraceptives empower women and change lives for the better. “Families tend to be smaller. Women are freer to work outside the home, earn an income, and contribute to the economy. Mothers and fathers can devote more resources to their kids’ health and education—setting them up for a more productive future,” said Melinda. “At the individual level, they make lives better. In the aggregate, they transform economies and enable countries to become more self-sufficient.”

Since Family Planning Summit 2012, modern contraceptives being used by 300 million women across the 69 of the world’s poorest countries averted 82 million unintended pregnancies, 25 million unsafe abortions, and 124,000 maternal deaths.

First Published: Jul 11, 2017 13:23 IST</s>More than 60 governments & partners expected to collectively announce at least $2.5 billion in funding with focus on better serving largest generation of adolescents in history and the hardest-to-reach women and girls

The Family Planning Summit is co-hosted by the UK Government, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in close partnership with the Family Planning 2020 Secretariat (FP2020). In parallel with the Summit in London, more than 2500 people will gather at 21 satellite events across Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Indonesia, Malawi, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Thailand and Uganda, demonstrating growing country leadership and support for family planning.

The Summit will build on progress made since the Family Planning Summit in 2012 and willreaffirminternationalpolitical support for women and girls to be able to decide for themselves whether, when and how many children to have.Itwill addressbarriersto progress that are common across many countries, witha wide range of policy and programmecommitments to ensure themoney invested in family planning goes further.

Financial commitmentsto be announced at the Summit are expected tototalat least$2.5billion USD(£1.9billion GBP) by 2020. The majority of the funding - $1.5billion USD(£1.16billion GBP) - has been committed by countries in Asia and Africa.Many of FP2020's 38 partner countries*, ranging from Bangladesh and Burkina Faso to India, Indonesia and Uganda, will makerenewed commitments to accelerate family planning progress, and four new countries will join theFP2020partnership.

Commitmentswill seekto deliverfamily planning to all who need it, especially adolescents,women and girls in humanitarian crises andthehard to reach.Highlights of the commitments made include:
• A Bridge Funding Mechanism to enable UNFPA Supplies, the world's largest provider of contraceptives, to provide countries with the family planning commodities they need as efficiently as possible. The Funding Mechanism is expected to speed up the procurement process, lower the cost of contraceptives, and ultimately reduce up to 50 per cent of UNFPA-related contraceptive stock-outs-delivering better results for countries, donors, and the women and families they serve.
• A supply chain Visibility Analytics Network (VAN), a global platform to capture and use data from multiple sources to provide enhanced visibility into contraceptive supply chains. By partnering with private sector logistics experts and using smart-phone technology, the network will improve countries' ability to know what contraceptives are in stock, where and how much - and to respond to stock-outs more efficiently. In two years' time, we anticipate that this Network will be up and running in at least 12 countries.
• Countries, donors, civil society and private foundations will pledge to collect, use, and disseminate age- and sex-disaggregated data. With improved data, governments, charities and others will be better able to design and assess programmes that more effectively meet the needs of adolescents.
• Ten private sector organisations from outside the health and pharmaceutical sector, including the Chaudhary Foundation, Twinings, Tata Trusts, Spark Minda, MTV Staying Alive Foundation, Lindex, Vodafone, CARD MRI, NST and Reckitt Benckiser, will make commitments that expand access to contraceptives, improve supply chains, or market and deliver family planning services to their employees. These will include commitments to reach more women and girls, including through their networks, assets, and expertise-from supply chains to microfinance networks to media channels.

The Family Planning Summit takes place on the five-year anniversary of the inaugural London Summit on Family Planning when world leaders set a goal to empower 120 million additional women and girls in the 69 lowest income countries to use modern contraception by 2020, and a new partnership was launched: Family Planning 2020 (FP2020). Since then, 30 million additional women and girls have begun using modern contraceptives - bringing the total to a record 300 million users across the 69 countries. As a result, last year more than 82 million pregnancies, 25 million unsafe abortions, and 125,000 maternal deaths were averted.

The Summit will feature commentary by government representatives from around the world, the United Nations, foundations, the private sector, civil society and youth advocates from eight countries.

"Family planning has the power to change a whole country's trajectory and help lift people out of grinding poverty. It gives women choice over if, and when, to have a family and makes real economic sense. Britain is leading the world on sexual and reproductive health and women's rights, and we have helped 8.5 million more women make an informed choice about using desperately-needed family planning services since 2012. Today's Summit with our international partners is an exciting and important opportunity to work together to empower millions more women and girls to take control of their own lives, address unsustainable population growth and boost global prosperity."

"Together we must keep our promise to leave no woman behind. Even though family planning is one of the best investments for development and women's empowerment, 214 million women in developing countries who want family planning still lack access to modern contraception. To meet our common goal of reaching 120 million more women and girls by 2020, we must strengthen partnerships and mobilize more funding. As we strive to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, we are committed to getting to zero unmet need for family planning by 2030 to ensure a better future for all."

Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said:

"Access to contraceptives changes everything. Women are freer to work outside the home, earn an income, and contribute to the economy. Mothers and fathers can devote more resources to their kids' health and education-setting them up for a more productive future. Multiply that by millions of families, and you see why contraceptives are one of the greatest antipoverty innovations the world has ever known-and one of the smartest investments countries can make. Through the new commitments expected today at the Family Planning Summit, we have made a bold statement that investing in family planning is crucial to building the healthier and more prosperous future we're all working towards."

"We are guided by the urgency of knowing that our work affects the lives and futures of women every day. The Summit is a chance to evaluate our progress on family planning, and re-dedicate ourselves to bringing this life-saving intervention to all that need and want it."

Media assets including b-roll of country representatives making commitments, field video from implementing countries, a wrap-up video of the Summit and photos from the Summit will be found here within 48 hours of the event: http://gatesfoundation.isebox.net/2017fps

The Family Planning Summit will take place in London, England on 11 July 2017, the five-year anniversary of the inaugural London Summit on Family Planning. Co-hosted by the UK Government, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in close partnership with the Family Planning 2020 Secretariat (FP2020), the international event was convened to boost progress on one of the best investments governments can make: rights-based family planning programmes. At the 2017 Summit, partners from around the world will reconvene to evaluate lessons learned, invest in proven solutions and take collective action to accelerate progress towards the shared FP2020 goal of empowering 120 million additional women and girls in the 69 lowest income countries to use modern contraception by 2020. These efforts will help further the goal of universal access to sexual and reproductive health, including family planning, as set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK's work to end extreme poverty. We are tackling the global challenges of our time including poverty and disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict. Our work is building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries and in the UK too.

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a global partnership that supports the rights of women and girls to decide- freely and for themselves-whether, when and how many children they want to have. FP2020 works with governments, civil society, multilateral organizations, donors, the private sector and the research and development community to enable 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020. FP2020 is in support of the UN Secretary-General's Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health.</s>LONDON, July 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - C ontraceptives are "one of the greatest anti-poverty innovations the world has ever known", philanthropist Melinda Gates said on Tuesday, calling for family planning to be a global priority.

Access to birth control boosts economic productivity by allowing women to earn an income and leads to smaller families with more resources to spend on children's health and education, Gates said.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was co-hosting an international summit in London on family planning, where donors were expected to raise at least $2.5 billion to expand access to contraception.

"Contraceptives empower women. And empowered women ... well, they transform societies," Gates said, according to an advance copy of her speech.

The foundation will announce an additional $375 million for family planning over the next four years.

The summit comes at a critical time, with U.S. President Donald Trump having said he will end funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations agency which deals with family planning, sexual and reproductive health.

The Trump administration also reinstated a policy blocking U.S. funding to overseas groups that perform or provide information about abortion.

Gates said she was "deeply troubled" by the proposed cuts.

"If empowering women is more than just rhetoric for the president, he will prove it by funding family planning," she added.

Gates, who is married to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, said contraception allowed her to finish her education, pursue a career in technology and plan when she had her children.

"My family, my career, and my life are the direct result of having access to contraceptives," she said.

But many women around the world get pregnant "too young, too old and too often", she said.

"In Malawi, everyone I met told me they knew a woman who had died in pregnancy," she said.

"In India, I sat in a circle of women and asked if anyone had lost a child. Every single woman raised her hand."

Some 214 million women and girls in developing countries cannot get access to contraceptives, experts say.

Meeting that need could help avert 67 million unintended pregnancies every year, thereby preventing the deaths of 76,000 women from pregnancy and childbirth related complications, they say.

Universal access to reproductive health services would lead to economic benefits of more than $430 billion a year as well, they say.

"Family planning has the power to change a whole country's trajectory and help lift people out of grinding poverty," Priti Patel, Britain's minister for international development, said in a statement.

Gates said contraceptives were "one of the smartest investments countries can make".

"At the individual level, contraceptives make lives better. In the aggregate, they transform economies."

The summit, held on World Population Day, will focus on ramping up access to contraceptives for adolescents, boosting family planning services in humanitarian crises and improving the supply and range of contraceptives available.

The conference comes five years after activists, philanthropists and leaders gathered at an earlier summit and set a goal to empower 120 million additional women and girls in the 69 poorest countries to use modern contraception by 2020.</s>Philanthropist Melinda Gates has said she has "agreed to disagree" with the Catholic Church on contraception.

She said her foundation and the church work closely together and she is "optimistic" the Pope will change views on contraception over time.

Extra funding for family planning programmes in some of the world's poorest countries is being provided by the UK government and the foundation run by Bill and Melinda Gates.</s>LONDON, July 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - C ontraceptives are "one of the greatest anti-poverty innovations the world has ever known", philanthropist Melinda Gates said on Tuesday, calling for family planning to be made a global priority.

Access to birth control boosts economic productivity by freeing up women to work, and leads to smaller families with parents able to devote more resources to their children's health and education, Gates told an international summit in London on family planning.

Financial commitments announced at the conference were expected to total at least $2.5 billion - of which $1.5 billion has been pledged by countries in Africa and Asia.

"Contraceptives empower women. And we know what empowered women do ... they transform societies," Gates said.

She announced the foundation would provide an additional $375 million for family planning over the next four years.

The summit comes at a critical time, with U.S. President Donald Trump having said he will end funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the U.N. agency which deals with family planning, sexual and reproductive health.

The Trump administration has also reinstated a policy blocking U.S. funding to overseas groups that perform or provide information about abortion.

Gates said she was "deeply troubled" by the proposed cuts.

"If empowering women is more than just rhetoric for the president, he will prove it by funding family planning," she added.

Gates, who is married to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, said contraception allowed her to finish her education, pursue a career in technology and plan when she had her children.

"My family, my career, my life as I know it are because I had access to ... contraceptives," she said.

But many women around the world were getting pregnant "too young, too old and too often".

"When I went to Malawi, everyone told me they knew a woman who had died in pregnancy," she said.

"I sat in a circle of women in India and asked if anyone had lost a child. Every single hand went up."

Some 214 million women and girls in developing countries cannot get access to contraceptives, experts say.

The estimate that meeting that need could help avert 67 million unintended pregnancies a year, thereby preventing the deaths of 76,000 women from pregnancy and childbirth related complications, as well as cutting stillbirths and newborn deaths.

Experts say universal access to reproductive health services would also lead to economic benefits of more than $430 billion a year.

"At the individual level, contraceptives make lives better. In the aggregate, they transform economies," Gates said.

Priti Patel, Britain's minister for international development, described family planning as "one of the smartest and savviest tools" for poverty reduction.

"We cannot tackle the scourge of poverty unless we get on top of this issue," she added.

Patel announced Britain would boost funding for family planning in developing countries to 225 million pounds ($289 million) a year until 2022 - an increase of 25 percent.

The new head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, promised to "personally champion the issue of sexual and reproductive rights as a top priority".

The summit, held on World Population Day, focused on ramping up access to contraceptives for adolescents, boosting family planning services in humanitarian crises and improving the supply and range of contraceptives available.

It comes five years after activists, philanthropists and leaders gathered at an earlier summit and set a goal to empower 120 million additional women and girls in the 69 least developed countries to use modern contraception by 2020.

The number has only grown by 30 million since then, meaning the target will be missed unless efforts are accelerated, organisers said. (Reporting by Emma Batha, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)</s>Nigerian women and girls will soon be able to access free family planning services as policymakers, donors and advocates have committed about $2.5 billion in funding for developing countries from 2017 to 2020.

The pledges were made in London, UK on Tuesday at the Family Planning 2020 summit tagged, Family Planning 2017. The event was hosted by the UK in partnership with the UN Population Fund, UNFPA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The programme brought together people from around the world to discuss how to remove the barriers to family planning services in developing countries.

It also served as a platform to advocate improvement in family planning initiatives in countries with low family planning policies in addition to encouraging women to lead better lives and also determine whether to get pregnant or not.

Though most of the pledges were from Asian and African countries, it is through the support of the UK government that Nigerian women will soon be having access to free family planning.

The UK International Development Secretary, Priti Patel, who gave the keynote address alongside Natalia Kanem, Acting head, UNFPA and Melinda Gates said the UK Government would boost and extend its annual support for family planning around the world until 2022.

Ms. Patel said UK will also focus its effort on eliminating the stigma, cost and access issues associated with family planning in developing countries by “supporting innovative technology, helping fix issues in the supply chains so that the contraceptives can reach the targeted people especially in emergency settings.”

“The UK will support more women who have no choice of contraceptives. We will support the roll out and scaling of the first new self-injectables contraceptive- Sayana Press to be available for more women in countries around the world. We will also through the World Bank encourage governments in developing countries to fund their own family planning systems which will allow women who cannot afford the contraceptives get it free of charge, and Nigeria will be a beneficiary,” she said.

Ms. Patel added that UK will also be demanding that its humanitarian partners focus more on women living in emergency settings, as they plan to improve access to family planning services for refugees as well.

She, however, noted that social taboos are some of the barriers facing women who want family planning and they intend to support the new ‘SRHR, Sexual and Reproductive Health Right Connect’ programme to address the stigma.

The Acting head, UNFPA, Natalia Kanem, said policymakers in their attempt to eliminate poverty and uphold human rights and dignity cannot ignore an essential tool for sustainable development, which is voluntary family planning.

Ms. Kanem said family planning saves lives and enables couples to choose whether and when to have children.

“It preserves women and girl health and empowers them to pursue education and work. Family planning enriches communities and strengthens economies. Unfortunately, an estimated 214 million women in developing countries have an unmet need for modern contraceptives and we need to urgently do something about it,’’ she said.

The Nigerian Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, said the Nigerian government is committed to encouraging more women and girls to use modern contraceptives as a means of preventing unwanted pregnancies and abortion.

Mr. Adewole said the federal government, as part of its commitment signed an MoU with UNFPA for an increase in its annual funding to the ‘basket fund’ and will also ensure the distribution of $56 million to the states through other loans at the Global Financing Facility,GFF.

Mr. Adewole said the government was committed to improving the use of modern contraceptives in the country “because it has become very critical for Nigeria to take care of its population before it becomes a demographic disaster for the nation.”

Mr. Adewole said if care was not taken, Nigeria would have a population of over 400 million, becoming the third largest in the world with its attendant challenges.

The minister said the Nigerian government with the assistance of USAID and Global Fund will open two new warehouses, one in Abuja, the other in Lagos, expected to link up seven additional warehouses across the country.</s>The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have called for a national emergency on family planning and birth control in the country.

According to the UNFPA, over 20 million women of childbearing age in Nigeria lack access to safe family planning methods, thereby exposing them to the dangers of unwanted pregnancy and its associated complications.

The assistant country representative of UNFPA, Osaretin Adonri, stated this on Tuesday in Abuja at an event to mark the 2017 World Population Day.

He recommended family planning and birth spacing as means of reducing maternal mortality and the population of street children in Nigeria.

The country representative of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mairo Mandara also explained that the declaration of a national emergency on family planning would help to reduce crime in the society.

On his part, the Chairman of the National Population Commission, Eze Duruiheoma argued that the country’s population does not matter anymore, but its quality.

The 2017 World Population with the theme: ‘Family Planning, Birth Spacing, Empowering People and Developing Nations’, is targeted at creating awareness on population issues, including the health of women.

Experts at the event noted that as a country with about 3.2% annual growth rate, there is a greater need to deepen the campaign in Nigeria.</s>Melinda Gates said she is “deeply troubled” by Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding for family planning, a move that threatens to reverse progress made on expanding services to women in some of the poorest parts of the world. .

At the opening plenary of the global family planning summit in London on Tuesday, Gates said: “This is a difficult political climate for family planning. I’m deeply troubled, as I’m sure you are, by the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts.

“If empowering women is more than just rhetoric for the president, he will prove it by funding family planning.”

The US is the largest donor for family planning, giving more than $600m this year alone.

But in May, Trump decided not allocate any funding for international family planning in his proposed budget. The move followed a decision in April to defund the UN Population Fund . The UNFPA is already facing a funding hole of $700m (£543m) until 2020. At the time of the budget, Gates tweeted that the move “would come at a tremendous cost to families around the world”.

The double funding blow followed Trump’s decision in January to reintroduce the “global gag rule”, which prevents US aid money from supporting overseas organisations if their work touches on abortion, which campaigners say puts the lives of millions of women at risk.

On Tuesday, Gates announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would increase its funding for family planning by 60%, with an extra $375m over the next four years. About $250m of this money will be used to fund services for teenagers.

But she admitted: “This additional funding can’t begin to close the gap that the US budget cuts could create.”

More than $2.5bn (£1.9bn) is expected to be pledged at the summit, which is co-hosted by the Gates foundation, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and the UNFPA. The summit aims to accelerate efforts to get modern contraceptives to 120 million more women and girls in 69 target countries by 2020 – a target that was set five years ago.

At the halfway point, only around 30 million more women had been reached, around 20 million fewer than had been hoped.

More than half of the money – $1.5bn – has been pledged by 38 of the 69 countries in Africa and Asia. An estimated $233m a year is needed to get family planning services to 120 million more women.

The UK government announced it was increasing its funding for family planning by £45m a year until 2022. In 2012, DfID pledged £185m per year until 2020, but the extra funding will result in an average £225m a year until 2022.

Speaking ahead of the summit, the international development secretary, Priti Patel, said: “Britain is leading the world on sexual and reproductive health and women’s rights, and we have helped 8.5 million more women make an informed choice about using desperately needed family planning services since 2012.

“But there are still 214 million women around the world who do not want to get pregnant, and are not currently able to use modern methods of family planning. Progress has been made, but more needs to be done.

“The UK government’s family planning summit with our international partners is an exciting and vital opportunity to work together to empower millions more women and girls to take control of their own lives so they can complete their education and later on take up better jobs, in turn boosting global prosperity.”</s>At today's London Summit on Family Planning, co-hosted by the UK Government, UNFPA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNFPA and United Colors of Benetton will launch Power Her Choices , a global campaign to protect women from unintended pregnancies

All women and girls have the right to decide freely whether and when to have children. This is the core message that United Colors of Benetton and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, are sending out to the world at the London Summit on Family Planning.

Today, more than 214 million women lack access to modern contraceptives. In 2016, an estimated 770,000 girls, some as young as ten years old, became mothers, with devastating effects on their health and future. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, up to 25 per cent of all young women leave school because of unintended pregnancies.

Organized by the Government of the United Kingdom, together with UNFPA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the London Summit on Family Planning is bringing together governments, institutions and stakeholders to move towards the goal of enabling 120 million additional women to gain access to modern contraception by 2020.

"Millions of women and adolescent girls are still waiting for access to modern contraceptives," said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA's Acting Executive Director. "While we have reached thirty million more women over the past five years, thanks to the Family Planning 2020 initiative, we need to step up our commitments, expand our partnerships, and broaden our reach to ensure that no one is left behind."

The latest outcome of an established collaboration between UNFPA and Benetton, the new Power Her Choices campaign, hopes to raise awareness about family planning and gain additional partners and signatories to this global commitment. Conceived by Fabrica, Benetton Group's research centre on communications, the main campaign image features a light bulb in the shape of a womb.

"It's a metaphor of how the work of UNFPA can help spark a new awareness in young women worldwide," said Carlo Tunioli, Fabrica's Chief Executive Officer. "Many girls, especially in developing countries, must be able to take control of their lives and have access to contraceptives."
The United Kingdom and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsor a summit that plans on raising funds for family planning in developing countries.