UNITED NATIONS, New York— Access to family planning, which is an essential human right, yields unprecedented rewards for economic development. The costs of ignoring that right include poverty, exclusion, poor health and gender inequality, according to a new report by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

The State of World Population 2012: By Choice, Not By Chance: Family Planning, Human Rights and Development, to be released globally on 14 November, presents evidence of the economic impact of family planning on families, communities and countries.

The report will be released in Berlin, Geneva, The Hague, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Tokyo, Washington, D.C., and more than 100 other capitals worldwide. It will be available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The embargoed report and related materials will be available to journalists online. To access the materials, journalists must register at /swp/register/.

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UNFPA works to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

For information about the report, or to arrange interviews, contact:

Omar Gharzeddine, +1 212 297 5028, gharzeddine@unfpa.org ; or
Mandy Kibel, +1 212 297 5293, kibel@unfpa.org .

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