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Unmet demand for family planning

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Women with unmet need are those who are fecund and sexually active but are not using any method of contraception, and report not wanting any more children or wanting to delay the next child. The concept of unmet need points to the gap between women's reproductive intentions and their contraceptive behaviour. For SDG monitoring, unmet need is expressed as a percentage based on women who are married or in a consensual union.

Analysis

The unmet demand for family planning has diminished in recent decades in the majority of countries, expressed in the fall of the regional average from 17.2% in 1990 to 10.6% in 2013.

Haiti tops the list of countries with the greatest unmet demand for family planning, with 35.3%, which means that nearly four out of ten women do not have access to contraception. Countries that also show high levels of unsatisfied demand for family planning are Guyana, with 28.5%; Guatemala, with 20.8%; Bolivia (Plurinational State of) with 20.1% and Honduras with 16.8%.

Only 9 of the countries in the region with available data have an unmet demand for family planning rate of under the 10%.