Little progress in meeting demand for contraception – study

MANILA, Philippines - There has been little progress in meeting the demand for contraception in the poorest countries for the past 14 years, according to a study by United States-based Guttmacher Institute.

The study entitled “Trends in Contraceptive Need and Use in Developing Countries in 2003, 2008, 2012: An Analysis of National Surveys” found that “within the developing world, the poorest countries are lagging far behind higher-income developing countries in meeting the demand for modern contraception.”

“Between 2003 and 2012, the total number of women wanting to avoid pregnancy and in need of contraception increased from 716 million to 867 million, with growth concentrated among women in the 69 poorest countries where modern method use was already very low,” it added.

Published in the Lancet, a reputable publication that releases the best research works in the field of medicine, the study also showed that 222 million or 73 percent of women in developing countries who want to avoid a pregnancy but are not using a modern method now live in the poorest countries, compared with 67 percent in 2003.

“Furthermore, women in the poorest countries who want to avoid pregnancy are one-third as likely to be using a modern method as those living in higher-income developing countries,” Guttmacher noted.