The private sector and family planning in developing countries

Abstract

While a private sector exists in every society, the nature of its involvement in family planning service delivery varies widely across countries. This paper reviews the role of the private sector in family planning and discusses how much more of the demand for contraception can be met through the private sector, thereby reducing government's subsidies for contraception. Following the introduction, section 2 discusses the characteristics of private sector supply, with a strong emphasis on for-profit producers and distributors of contraceptives. Section 3 describes the distribution of users across sources and addresses the issue of pricing at public, for-profit and NGO sources of family planning services. In section 4 the experience to date with private sector approaches is outlined to provide a sense of what has been and is currently going on in public and and donor efforts to harness and collaborate with the private sector. Section 5 presents alternative means for government and donors to promote private sector activity in family planning, and suggests some of the costs of a greater private sector role. The final section summarizes and concludes the paper.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Health Economics&Finance,ICT Policy and Strategies