Investing in Family Planning: Key to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Family planning encompasses the services, policies, information, attitudes, practices, and commodities, including contraceptives, that give women, men, couples, and adolescents the ability to avoid unintended pregnancy and choose whether and/or when to have a child. In this commentary, we outline family planning’s links to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and highlight the transformational benefits that voluntary family planning brings to women, families, commu­ nities, and countries. We present family planning as a cross-sectoral intervention that can hasten progress across the 5 SDG themes of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership (Figure). We particularly stress family planning’s: • Link to human rights, gender equality, and empowerment • Impact on maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health • Role in shaping economic development and envir­ onmental and political futures