Welcome to the Family Planning Knowledge Sharing Wiki!

Despite great progress in family planning over the last several decades, millions of women worldwide and their partners are not using family planning methods to help plan their families, space births and prevent unplanned pregnancies. Access to quality family planning information and services can help whole communities escape poverty and injustice. When a woman can choose how many children she has, and how closely her children are spaced in birth, she is more likely to have a smaller, healthier, better educated family. She is more likely to have greater educational and employment opportunities and share her voice in her community. With access to family planning services and information, women face less risk of death or disability from pregnancy or childbirth.

CARE understands it takes more than offering access to quality family planning services and information to lift a woman out of poverty – we also must address the complex social and cultural barriers that impact her world. For example, a woman’s fear of social disapproval or her partner’s opposition to family planning may prevent her from seeking out contraceptives. Her worries of a contraceptive’s side effects and health concerns may hold her back, or she may lack knowledge and understanding about family planning options.

CARE is committed to increasing access to and use of high-quality family planning information and services by women, men, families and communities through an integrated approach that includes understanding – and addressing – underlying causes of poor reproductive health. And while CARE is best known for empowering individuals and families at the community level, we also help strengthen health systems and collaborate with governments and a host of partners to ensure that the world’s most vulnerable women can better plan their lives, be more productive and participate more fully and equally in society.

In 2008, CARE launched a four-country, four-year program with the goal of increased and sustained use of family planning. The Social Change for Family Planning Results Initiative will integrate family planning into ongoing village savings and HIV prevention programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative addresses social issues, such as gender inequity, in conjunction with improvements in health services and information. CARE seeks to improve the availability of quality family planning, and understand and address social norms that prevent women and couples from postponing, spacing and limiting births.

Visit some of our tools.