Economic Evaluation of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Policies

Understanding the way economists formulate answers to these questions can be helpful to those working on FP/RH programs in two ways. First, it can help them design better policies. Although other policy frameworks may also promote better public policy in the health sector, the standard economic policy framework offers a clear and compelling way to think about many health sector policies. Second, some familiarity with the standard economic policy framework can be helpful in communicating with economists in ministries of finance and planning who control the allocation of scarce governmental resources among competing uses. This is increasingly important in a post-Cairo world. Because the Cairo Program of Action (POA) addresses a range of human development issues as well as recommending a broad package of reproductive health services, the Cairo POA requires substantial resources. At the same time, competition for funds and tighter overall budgets are forcing donors and governmental officials working in family planning and reproductive health to strengthen their arguments for financial support. At the time of the recent review of progress during the five years since the Cairo conference,