UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Melinda Gates set to unveil Gates Foundation pledge to fund contraception

Record ID: 702194

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Melinda Gates set to unveil Gates Foundation pledge to fund contraception
  • Date: 10th July 2012
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (JULY 10, 2012) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MELINDA GATES, SAYING: "It is far less controversial than people make it. So there was a fantastic poll done by Gallup, a big polling organisation in the United States about three months ago. And at the top of the poll, they polled about 20 different items, top of the poll was 90 percent of Americans, 90 percent, think contraceptives are morally acceptable. 82 percent of Catholics think contraceptives are morally acceptable. To me that's not controversial and I think the piece about contraception is not controversial and that is the piece that I am focusing on. It is when you start to broaden the agenda that you find the controversy and so the piece we are doing is modern contraception."
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA9QXR1NDXTW2X38PZK9LDI696U
  • Story Text: The exact amount the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will pledge to improve access to contraception in the developing world will be announced at a summit of world leaders and aid organisations in London on Wednesday (July 11).
    It is set to reach hundreds of millions of dollars and in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday (July 10) in London, UK, Melinda Gates said the commitment will be "on a par" with the foundation's other big programmes, like that against malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis.
    In January, the foundation pledged a further 750 million US dollars for that fight on top of 650 million US dollars contributed since the fund was set up 10 years ago.
    The aim of the London Summit on Family Planning is to raise 4 billion US dollars to expand access to contraception for 120 million women in the developing world by 2020.
    Melinda Gates called the role of the Foundation to be a "catalytic wedge" helping governments to push results.
    "We can put a certain amount of money in, but the causes that we have picked around the world are so enormous that they take governments to come in and really fund them at large-scale. What a foundation can do is show some ways, take some of the risk out of the equation, put some of the innovation in, but ultimately it is governments that need to come in and fund them and that is what makes me exited about the London Family Planning Summit is you are going to see government commitments to this as well," she said.
    According to United Nations figures, about 220 million women in the developing world who don't want to get pregnant, can't get reliable access to contraception.
    But money is not the only barrier. Controlling population growth has fallen off the development agenda, rendered controversial for decades by coercive programmes like forced sterilisation in India in the 1970s and China's one-child policy.
    It still provokes controversy, not least in the United States, where Gates has been criticised by Catholic groups who tend to see contraception and abortion as part of the same issue.
    "It is far less controversial than people make it. So there was a fantastic poll done by Gallup, a big polling organisation in the United States about three months ago. And at the top of the poll, they polled about 20 different items, top of the poll was 90 percent of Americans, 90 percent, think contraceptives are morally acceptable. Eighty-two (82) percent of Catholics think contraceptives are morally acceptable. To me that's not controversial and I think the piece about contraception is not controversial and that is the piece that I am focusing on. It is when you start to broaden the agenda that you find the controversy and so the piece we are doing is modern contraception," Gates said.
    But there are major cultural barriers in some developing countries to limiting family size.
    Goodluck Jonathan, president of Africa's most populous country Nigeria, has backed greater use of birth control to head off a population boom that the United Nations forecasts will see the nation grow to 400 million by 2050 from 160 million.
    Gates and development agencies agree that making contraception available on a voluntary basis is crucial, and will be enough to bring major economic, health, and environmental benefits.
    This week, medical journal The Lancet published a series of studies that underpin the campaign.
    One argued satisfying the unmet demand for contraception among women who want to limit or space their pregnancies could reduce maternal deaths by 30 percent, saving about 104,000 lives a year caused by complications linked to pregnancy and childbirth.
    Better access to contraception would cut unsafe abortions, estimated to account for 13 percent of maternal deaths in the developing world. First pregnancies for very young women and those that are spaced to closely also bring heightened risk, the study said.
    An environmental study estimated that if the UN's highest predictions of population growth prove correct it will lead to a 60 percent rise in carbon dioxide emissions from energy use.
    And an economic analysis in the same series based on findings in Bangladesh and Ghana found that making contraception widely available increased female participation in the work force, lifted women's earnings and enhanced overall economic growth.
    The majority of the funding for the campaign will not come from the Gates Foundation, but Melinda Gates believes the countries in greatest need of better family planning have both the means and the political will.
    But why, given the Gates' reputation for setting ambitious targets for the eradication of some of the world's biggest health threats, is the target not to meet the unmet contraceptive needs of the whole 220 million?
    "I think its really important, particularly in global health to have ambitious goals but also realistic goals," says Gates. "Even meeting 120 million is going to be tough for us."
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