Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

Healthcare for everyone must prioritise women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, says UK at UN General Assembly

Healthcare for everyone must prioritise women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, says UK at UN General Assembly

New UK aid will give over 20 million women and girls access to family planning per year over the next five years, saving tens of thousands of lives.

The International Development Secretary, Alok Sharma, has announced new funding that will provide millions more women and girls with access to family planning – a sign of the UK’s commitment to women and girls’ rights around the world.

There are women in the developing world who are unable to exercise their rights over their body because they can’t access contraception. Speaking at an event at the United Nations General Assembly, Alok Sharma said the world cannot achieve universal health coverage without prioritising universal sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) access for women and girls.

With this programme and other ongoing DFID-funded family planning programmes, such as WISH, UK aid is collectively going beyond the ambition set out at the 2017 Family Planning Summit of reaching 20 million women a year.

The programme announced today will provide £600 million over 2020-2025 and will buy family planning supplies for millions more women and girls in the world’s poorest countries each year. This includes those affected by humanitarian crises, such as Syria, Yemen and Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh – helping to fulfil that unmet need and save the lives of tens of thousands of women. It will also give them access to life-saving medicines in hospitals, which can help prevent death in childbirth.

The new funding represents a significant uplift in the UK’s already world-leading support for family planning and will transform access to it.

International Development Secretary Alok Sharma said:

The UK has been at the forefront of global efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls living in the world’s poorest countries.

Between April 2018 and March 2019 alone, UK aid reached at least 23.5 million women and girls. But there are still millions more who are being denied their rights to decide what is right for them.

This UK aid will help give millions of women and girls control over their bodies, so they can choose if, when and how many children they want. That is a basic right that every woman and girl deserves.

Over the next five years, this new UK aid support (£600 million from 2020-2025) will:

  • give over 20 million women and girls access to family planning per year. This is 5 million more women per year than the UK’s previous reproductive health supplies programme
  • prevent more than 5 million unintended pregnancies per year
  • prevent at least 1.5 million potentially-fatal unsafe abortions per year
  • save an estimated 9,000 women’s lives per year from complications in pregnancy or childbirth.

This package includes a renewed investment in UNFPA Supplies, which operates in 46 countries, representing those with the highest rates of maternal mortality and lowest rates of modern contraceptive use.

The UK has been at the forefront of global efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for women and girls living in the world’s poorest countries.

  • From 2013-2020, the UK invested £356 million in a reproductive health supplies programme, which provided family planning for 15 million couples a year.

  • In 2018, the UK announced our flagship comprehensive SRHR programme - Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) - will ensure six million couples can reliably gain access to life-saving voluntary contraception and the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health care in 24 countries in Africa and 3 countries in Asia, every year of the programme.

Since 2012, millions more women and girls have access to modern contraception, in large part thanks to the work of UK aid. Between April 2018 and March 2019 alone, UK aid reached at least 23.5 million women and girls, preventing millions of unsafe abortions and saving thousands of women’s lives.

Every day at least 20,000 adolescent girls become pregnant. There are at least 38 million adolescent girls in developing countries who are sexually active but want to avoid or delay pregnancy, only 15 million of whom are using modern contraception. Providing adolescent girls with access to the contraceptive choices they want would prevent 6 million unintended pregnancies and 1.9 million unsafe abortions, saving 6,000 maternal lives each year.

Family planning is one of the best investments in development. According to the Copenhagen Consensus, family planning is among the most cost-effective interventions - long-term benefits accrue from avoiding unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions, and averting infant and maternal deaths. Every $1 invested in meeting the unmet need for contraceptives in the long-term can yield up to $120 in accrued annual benefits.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×