Family planning policies and their impacts on the poor: Peru's experience.

International Family Planning Perspectives Although governments develop family planning policies to guide program design and implementation, these policies can have both intended and unintended consequences. As a result, policies may need periodic revision to achieve the desired outcomes. Over the last two decades, the government of Peru has instituted a series of laws and policies designed to enhance access to family planning services and commodities. In practice, these policies have not always had their desired effect. This paper examines the policies Peru’s Ministry of Health has developed and implemented to promote access to family planning for all, and how those policies have affected contraceptive prevalence, method mix and source mix. In this article, we review policies and laws relevant to family planning and provide insight on how the family planning policies have evolved and affected access to services, as well as how characteristics of and trends in the family planning market* have changed over time. Our assessment draws on multiple information sources, including family planning market segmentation data and literature on Peru’s family planning program. Additional sources, such as ombudsman reports, user and provider interviews and health facility studies, clarify specific points. A historic overview of key family planning policies and programs implemented in Peru, focusing on three time periods, 1985–1995, 1995–2000 and 2000–2004, provides information on policies that have been put in place and the degree to which they have affected access to family planning among the poor.