By 2020, if an additional 120 million women who want contraceptives could get them, this would mean 200,000 fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth - that's saving a woman’s life every 20 minutes. Access to contraceptives would mean nearly 3 million fewer babies dying in their first year of life.

On 11 July 2012 the UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will host a groundbreaking summit to cut in half the current number of women and girls in the world’s poorest countries without access to contraception, but who wish to avoid pregnancy or space their children.

Background

On 11 July 2012 the UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will host a groundbreaking summit to cut in half the current number of women and girls in the world’s poorest countries without access to contraception, but who wish to avoid pregnancy or space their children.

Every woman and girl deserves the opportunity to to determine her own future. Contraceptives give the world's poorest women the power to decide if and when to have another child.

Find out more at www.dfid.gov.uk/changinglives

To follow the London Summit on Family Planning visit www.dfid.gov.uk/fpsummit

Picture: Lindsay Mgbor/Department for International Development

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