Local Barriers and Challenges

Despite tremendous progress and increasing demand, uptake is slowed by barriers of many kinds – financial, geographical, cultural, and religious.

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What stops people from using contraception?

Limited access to services, particularly among young, poorer and unmarried people
Limited choice of methods
Limited access to services, particularly among young, poorer and unmarried people
Location/distance to services
Fear or experience of side effects
Lack of knowledge about methods
Cultural or religious opposition
Legal and regulatory barriers such as age or marital status
Poor quality of available services
Users’ and providers’ bias against some methods
Limits on who can provide
Gender-based barriers to accessing services.
Belief that men and boys don’t need family planning

[WHO]

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What can countries do to create stronger family planning programs?

Expand availability and choice with self-care options and new methods
Engage adolescents and youth
Integrate family planning in policies, plans and insurance schemes
Prepare for humanitarian crises
Enhance agency and reduce discrimination of marginalized women and girls
Strengthen health systems
Improve quality of care, including counseling
Improve and disaggregate data

[UNFPA]

The barriers make it even more difficult to keep pace with demand – and demand is growing. Rapid population growth in the age group that wants to use modern methods of contraception means more and more people want to use voluntary family planning. Many are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Unmet need for family planning

Globally, an estimated 257 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe, modern methods of contraception, and where data is available, nearly a quarter of all women are not able to say no to sex. A range of other key factors also contribute to unintended pregnancies, including:

Lack of sexual and reproductive health care and information
Contraceptive options that don't suit women's bodies or circumstances
Harmful norms and stigma surrounding women controlling their own fertility and bodies
Sexual violence and reproductive coercion
Judgmental attitudes or shaming in health services
Poverty and stalled economic development
Gender inequality

All of these factors reflect the pressure societies place on women and girls to become mothers. An unintended pregnancy is not necessarily a personal failure and may be due to the lack of autonomy society allows or the value placed on women’s lives. Also, even in better-off countries, maternal death rates are higher among communities that continue to confront racial and other prejudices in everyday life.

Displacement and migration caused by natural disasters, climate change, conflict and socio economic crises all create barriers to people’s health and well-being, including contraceptive use.