Family Planning as a Strategic Focus of U.S. Foreign Policy

Comprehensive policies that incorporate demography, family planning, and reproductive health can promote higher levels of stability and development, thereby improving the health and livelihood of people around the world while also benefiting overarching U.S. interests. U.S. foreign aid will be more effective if increased investments are made in high population-growth countries for reproductive health and family planning programs. Reproductive health and family planning initiatives are cost-effective because they help reduce the stress that rapid population growth places on a country’s economic, environmental, and social resources.

In this Working Paper, part of a series from CFR’s Women and Foreign Policy program, Elizabeth Leahy Madsen recommends that the U.S. government restore its technical leadership in providing and supportive contraceptive technology research, program innovation, and tools that monitor and evaluate service delivery of family planning.t