The UK has put girls and women at the centre of our international development work. Women and adolescent girls must have the right to make their own decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and well-being, and be able to choose whether, when and how many children to have. When women and girls have choice, this means they can avoid early, frequent and risky pregnancies, and instead complete their education and improve their livelihoods.
The UK is fully committed to the goal of family planning for all who want it and the Department for International Development (DFID) is working hard to achieve it. By 2020 DFID support will result in 24 million additional women and girls in the poorest countries in the world using modern voluntary contraception. DFID is also looking at innovative ways to meet the family planning needs of young people, including teenagers. When allocating funding for humanitarian crises, DFID will now require NGO partners to consider the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls.
At the London Family Planning Conference in 2012, ministers pledged to double the UK's yearly aid spend on family planning. In 2014, the most recent year for which figures are available, UK spending on Family Planning was £203 million, exceeding the 2012 commitment. As part of this the UK is providing £356 million in support to the United Nations Population Fund until 2020. As a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, I warmly welcome this news.