Reproductive health experts want more access to modern contraceptives to prevent population bulge that would undermine efforts to tackle global poverty

Giving people access to family planning is crucial to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030, reproductive health experts said this week.

Speaking at an international family planning conference in Bali, Ellen Starbird, director of population and reproductive health at USAid, said family planning was the “critical link” to meet each of the 17 goals that were adopted by UN member states in September.

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Targets in two of the SDGs – goals three and five – call for universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights. But those campaigning for wider access to family planning and improved reproductive healthcare believe that unless more people are offered modern contraception, other interventions to reduce poverty and inequality may be far less effective.

Starbird pointed to the energy crisis in many poorer countries: despite huge efforts in developing countries to provide electricity, capacity is “eaten up” by growing populations. The consequences, she said, could be serious, with a population bulge that would lead to a huge number of uneducated young people without work in the years to come.

Starbird added that it was important to get “strong outcome indicators” in the SDGs. The indicators, which will be used to gauge progress towards meeting the goals, are still under discussion. One of the proposed benchmarks is to meet at least 75% of demand for family planning by 2030. “What gets measured, gets done,” said Starbird.

According to the global progress report published in November by Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), 24.4 million more women and girls in poorer countries have begun using modern contraceptives in the past three years. The total number of women using a modern method in FP2020’s 69 target countries is now 290.6 million. However, progress towards FP2020’s target of giving an additional 120 million women access to contraception by 2020 is off track.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UN Population Fund. Photograph: Anthony Harvey/Getty Images

“Family planning is about women’s rights and their capacity to make decisions about their health and wellbeing,” said Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UN Population Fund.

“It is a most significant investment to promote human capital development, combat poverty and harness a demographic dividend, thus contributing to equitable and sustainable economic development,” he said.

Joko Widodo, president of Indonesia, told the conference on Monday that his government was working hard to revitalise family planning because “we know that the challenges facing Indonesian families in the future will [only] be greater, especially when it comes to population issues … we also encourage local governments to raise awareness and make family planning a priority in every municipality and village across Indonesia”.

He stressed the importance of increasing access to long-acting contraceptives, reducing the cost of family planning services and introducing peer education programmes.

The Indonesian finance minister announced the government had earmarked 5% of health spending for family planning in its 2016 budget.

Senegal’s minister of health, Awa Marie Coll Seck, said: “The world community must realise that to make progress faster, countries need to follow their own plans, which may be different from plans drawn by donors; the one-size-fits-all does not work.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, speaks at the opening of the international conference on family planning in Bali. Photograph: Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

The challenges of providing universal family planning are enormous, acknowledged Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but so are the rewards. “There is no time to lose,” she said in a video message to delegates.

On Monday, the Gates Foundation launched a $30m (£21m), four-year project with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation to increase access to contraceptives and reduce unplanned pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-olds in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Nigeria.

The project, Adolescents 360, aims to work with girls to find out what their needs are and how they can be met. It will also work with parents, boys and community leaders to address the issues that lead to early and unintended pregnancy.