Family planning is vital in such a way that it improves health, contributes to healthier children, and prevents unwanted pregnancies.

Countries in the developing world have invested in health and education and have provided women with family planning and reproductive health programs.

When couples choose the number, timing and spacing of their children, they are able to adequately feed and educate their children, potentially ending the cycle of poverty, communities thrive, and in turn, countries fare better.

Family planning can also expand life choices for women and girls. Postponing early marriage and childbirth among girls and young brides through family planning increases their chances of receiving a good education.

Education is vital not only to women’s individual development, but to that of their children as well as to the social, political, and economic growth of their community.

Men and women who participate in family planning-programs get appropriate decisions about their family size and the spacing of their children.

It also address individuals’ and couples’ sexual and reproductive health needs, they are well-placed to help prevent HIV/AIDS, help those who are HIV negative to avoid re-infection , or keep one partner from infecting the other.

Rapid population growth if not checked can result in using up the environment’s resources - the trees, the water, and the wildlife - more quickly than they are replaced.

For example, encroachments on the environment have led to new infectious diseases while water shortages are seriously affecting people in the developing world.

Office of National Population (ONAPO) is one of the projects in Rwanda which support family planning. It sets a target of 6.5 children per woman by the year 2001 which translates to increasing the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) to 30%.

The low levels of CPR are attributed to social, cultural and religious reticence; illiteracy; economic constraints fear of side effects misconceptions.

USAID also an American project supports programs in more than 60 countries in Africa by giving counselling services, training of health workers, contraceptive supplies and their distribution, financial management, public education and marketing, and biomedical and contraceptive research and development.

It is based on a broad reproductive health approach which emphasizes choice among a wide range of contraceptives, improved quality of care, and client-centred services.

USAID family planning programs are increasingly integrated with other community-based efforts to improve maternal and child health, enhance women’s status, and prevent HIV transmission and other infectious diseases.

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