Donor Government Funding for Family Planning in 2023

This report provides an analysis of donor government funding for family planning in low- and middle-income countries in 2023, the most recent year available, as well as trends over time. It includes both bilateral funding from donor governments and their contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). It is part of an effort by KFF to track such funding that began after the London Summit on Family Planning in 2012. Overall, donor government funding for family planning increased in 2023, returning to prior year levels, but still below its peak in 2019.

Key findings include the following:

• Family planning funding from donor governments was US$1.47 billion in 2023. Most funding is provided bilaterally (US$1.4 billion or 95%). The remainder – US$69.6 million (5%) – is for multilateral contributions to UNFPA’s core resources, adjusted for an estimated family planning share.
• This represents an increase of 7% (US$101.1 million) in 2023 compared to US$1.37 billion in 2022 and is a return to prior year levels, but still below its peak reached in 2019 (US$1.58 billion).¹ 
• The overall increase was due to increased bilateral funding from most donor governments; multilateral funding (contributions to UNFPA’s core resources) declined slightly largely due to decreases by Germany, Sweden, and the U.S.² 
• Total funding increased from five donor governments in 2023 (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K.).³  Funding from the U.S. remained flat, and three countries decreased – Australia, Denmark, and Sweden.⁴  These trends were the same after accounting for exchange rate fluctuations, except for Sweden, which increased in currency of origin.⁵ 
• The U.S. continued to be the largest donor to family planning in 2023, accounting for 40% (US$582.5 million) of total funding from governments, followed by the Netherlands (US$246.5 million, 17%), the U.K. (US$198.6 million, 13%), Sweden (US$124.5 million, 8%) and Canada (US$112.2 million, 8%). However, when family planning funding is standardized by the size of donor economies, the Netherlands ranked first, followed by Sweden, and Norway; the U.S. ranked 7th.

The future of donor government support for family planning, however, is uncertain. A second Trump administration will almost certainly see an end to U.S. support for UNFPA, and proposed cuts to bilateral funding, as was seen in his first term. Moreover, the extent to which other donors will fill in any gaps created by the U.S. is unclear, as they face their own financial pressures and changes in leadership. Such uncertainties, and potential funding reductions, would create new challenges for reaching people in low- and middle-income countries with family planning services.

Introduction

This report provides data on donor government funding for family planning activities in low- and middle-income countries in 2023, the most recent year available, as well as trends over time. It is part of an effort by KFF that began after the London Summit on Family Planning in 2012 and includes data from all 32 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Data are collected directly from the largest donors and supplemented with data from the DAC. Direct data collection was carried out for nine donor governments that account for 97% of total funding for family planning. Both bilateral assistance and core contributions to UNFPA, adjusted for a family planning share, are included. For more detail, see methodology.

Findings

Total Funding

In 2023, donor government funding for family planning through bilateral and multilateral channels totaled US$1.47 billion, an increase of US$101.1 million, or 7%, compared to 2022 (US$1.37 billion). While this marks a return to prior year levels, it is below the peak level reached in 2019 (US$1.58 billion) (see Figure 1 & Table 1). The increase was entirely due to increased bilateral support from the majority of donor governments; multilateral funding decreased slightly (see “Bilateral Funding” and “Multilateral Funding” sections below).

Total funding increased from five donor governments in 2023 (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K.).⁶  Funding from the U.S. remained flat, and three countries decreased – Australia, Denmark, and Sweden.^7 ,8  These trends were the same after accounting for exchange rate fluctuations, except for Sweden, which increased in currency of origin.⁹  There were, however, some differences among the donor governments in the amount of bilateral and multilateral funding provided between 2022 and 2023 (see Bilateral and Multilateral sections below).

The vast majority of donor government funding for family planning is provided bilaterally (95%). The remainder (5%) is for multilateral contributions to UNFPA’s core resources, adjusted based on the share used to support family planning activities. All donor governments provided a larger share of their family planning funding bilaterally (see Figure 2).

The U.S. continued to be the largest government donor to family planning in 2023, accounting for 40% (US$582.5 million) of total donor government funding (see Figure 3). The Netherlands was the second largest donor (US$246.5 million or 17%), followed by the U.K. (US$198.6 million or 13%), and Sweden (US$124.5 million or 8%).

Bilateral Funding

Bilateral disbursements for family planning from donor governments – that is, funding disbursed by a donor on behalf of a recipient country or region – totaled US$1.40 billion in 2023, an increase of US$111.2 million, or 9%, compared to 2022 (US$1.29 billion) (see Appendix Table 1).

Bilateral funding from six donor governments (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K.) increased in 2023 (see Figure 4).¹⁰  Two donor governments (Australia and Denmark) decreased funding in 2023, while the U.S. remained flat. These trends were the same after accounting for exchange rate fluctuations.

The U.S. and U.K. have been the top two donors over the entire period since the London Summit (2012-2023). However, U.S. funding has been relatively flat while funding from the U.K., which fluctuated over the period, has declined in recent years. When these two are removed, bilateral funding from the other donor governments has generally increased over the period; although, there have been fluctuations (see Figure 5).

Multilateral Funding

While the majority of donor government assistance for family planning is provided bilaterally, donors also provide support for family planning activities through core contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) (where donors direct or earmark funding for specific family planning activities, such as for UNFPA Supplies, these are included as part of bilateral funding). In 2023, UNFPA estimates that 18% of its core funding was directed to family planning activities.¹¹ 

These totaled US$69.6 million in 2023, a decrease of US$10.1 million compared to 2022 (US$79.7 million) (see Appendix Table 2). The decrease was entirely due to a decline in total contributions to UNFPA’s core resources – largely from Germany, Sweden, and the U.S, rather than a change in the share of core resources UNFPA directed to family planning activities.^12 ,13  Norway was the largest donor government to UNFPA’s core resources, followed by Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Fair Share

We looked at two different measures to assess the relative contributions of donor governments, or “fair share”, to family planning (see Table 2) as follows: rank by share of total donor government disbursements for family planning, and rank by funding for family planning per US$1 million in gross domestic product (GDP).

• Rank by share of total donor government funding for family planning: By this measure, the U.S. ranked first in 2022, followed by the Netherlands, the U.K., Sweden, and Canada. The U.S. has consistently ranked #1 in absolute funding amounts over the entire period since the London Summit (2012-2023).
• Rank by funding for family planning per US$1 million GDP: When funding for family planning is standardized by the size of donor economies (GDP per US$1 million), the Netherlands ranks at the top, followed by Sweden, Norway, and the U.K. (Figure 6); the U.S. ranks 7th.

Methods

Totals presented in this analysis include both bilateral funding for family planning in low- and middle-income countries as well as the estimated share of donor government contributions to UNFPA’s core resources that are used for family planning. Amounts are based on analysis of data from the 32 donor government members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 2023 who had reported Official Development Assistance (ODA). Bilateral and multilateral data were collected from multiple sources.

Bilateral Funding:

Bilateral funding is defined as any earmarked (family planning designated) amount and includes family planning-specific contributions to multilateral organizations (e.g., non-core contributions to UNFPA Supplies). For purposes of this analysis, funding was counted as family planning if it met the OECD CRS purpose code definition: “Family planning services including counselling; information, education and communication (IEC) activities; delivery of contraceptives; capacity building and training.”

The research team collected the latest bilateral funding data directly from nine governments: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States during 2023 (see Appendix Table 3). Direct data collection from these donors was desirable because they represent the preponderance of donor government assistance for family planning and the latest official statistics – from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Creditor Reporting System (CRS) (see: http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/data) – do not include all forms of international assistance (e.g., funding to countries such as Russia and the Baltic States that are no longer included in the CRS database). In addition, the CRS data may not include certain funding streams, such as family planning components of mixed-purpose grants to non-governmental organizations, provided by donors. Data for all other OECD DAC member governments – Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, the European Union, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland – which collectively accounted for approximately 3 percent of bilateral family planning disbursements, were obtained from the OECD CRS database and are from 2022 calendar year.

For some donor governments, it was difficult to disaggregate bilateral family planning funding from broader population, reproductive and maternal health totals, as the two are sometimes represented as integrated totals. In other cases, funding for family-planning-related activities provided in the context of other official development assistance sectors (e.g., humanitarian assistance, education, civil society) was included if identifiable (e.g., if donors indicate specific family planning percentages for mixed-purpose projects, or if it was possible to identify family planning specific funding based on project titles and/or descriptions).

With some exceptions, bilateral assistance data represent disbursements. A disbursement is the actual release of funds to, or the purchase of goods or services for, a recipient. Disbursements in any given year may include disbursements of funds committed in prior years and in some cases, not all funds committed during a government fiscal year are disbursed in that year. In addition, a disbursement by a government does not necessarily mean that the funds were provided to a country or other intended end-user. Enacted amounts represent budgetary decisions that funding will be provided, regardless of the time at which actual outlays, or disbursements, occur. In recent years, most governments have converted to cash accounting frameworks, and presented budgets for legislative approval accordingly; in such cases, disbursements were used as a proxy for enacted amounts.

Amounts presented are for the fiscal year period, which vary by country. The U.S. fiscal year runs from October 1-September 30. The Australian fiscal year runs from July 1-June 30. The fiscal years for Canada and the U.K. are April 1-March 31. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden use the calendar year. The OECD uses the calendar year, so data collected from the CRS for other donor governments reflect January 1-December 31. Most UN agencies use the calendar year, and their budgets are biennial.

All data are expressed in US dollars (USD). Where data were provided by governments in their currencies, they were adjusted by average daily exchange rates to obtain a USD equivalent, based on foreign exchange rate historical data available from the U.S. Federal Reserve (see: http://www.federalreserve.gov/) or in some cases from the OECD. Funding totals presented in this analysis should be considered preliminary estimates based on data provided and validated by representatives of the donor governments who were contacted directly.

Specific notes pertaining to the donor governments where direct data collection was conducted are as follows:

• Project-level data were reviewed for Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden to determine whether all or a portion of the funding could be counted as family planning.
• Project-level data were also reviewed for France for 2012-2020, but comparable data were not available for 2021-2023, so totals for these years are based on the OECD DAC CRS database. Totals for 2021-2023 will be updated once comparable data become available. Starting with the report presenting 2022 funding amounts, totals for France were included under the amounts presented for all other DAC members; prior reports presented totals for France separately.
• Funding attributed to Australia and the United Kingdom is based on a revised Muskoka methodology as agreed upon by donors at the London Summit on Family Planning in 2012.
• For the U.S., funding represents final, Congressional appropriations (firm commitments that will be spent) to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), rather than disbursements, which can fluctuate from year-to-year due to the unique nature of the U.S. budget process (unlike most other donors, U.S. foreign assistance funding may be disbursed over a multi-year period). U.S. totals for 2017-2020 also include some funding originally appropriated by Congress for UNFPA that was transferred to the USAID family planning & reproductive health (FP/RH) account due to specific provisions in U.S. law including the Kemp-Kasten amendment (see KFF “UNFPA Funding & Kemp-Kasten: An Explainer”).

Multilateral Funding:

UNFPA core contributions were obtained from United Nations Executive Board documents and correspond to amounts received during the 2023 calendar year, regardless of which contributor’s fiscal year such disbursements pertain to. Data were already adjusted by UNFPA to represent a USD equivalent based on date of receipts. UNFPA estimates of total family planning funding provided from core resources were obtained through direct communications with UNFPA representatives for 2012-2021; family planning funding estimates from UNFPA’s core resources for 2022-2023 are based on amounts reported on UNFPA’s Transparency Portal and designated as for “Ending the Unmet Need for Family Planning”.

UNFPA’s core resources are meant to be used for both programmatic activities (family planning, population and development, HIV/AIDS, gender, and sexual and reproductive health and rights) as well as operational support. Donor government contributions to UNFPA’s core resources were adjusted to reflect the share of core resources supporting family planning activities in a given year based on information from UNFPA. For instance, in 2023, UNFPA reported expenditures totaling US$500 million from core resources including US$92 million for family planning activities, which results in an estimated 18% of a donor government’s core contribution in 2023 being included in its total funding for family planning.^14 ,15 

Other than core contributions provided by governments to UNFPA, un-earmarked core contributions to United Nations entities, most of which are membership contributions set by treaty or other formal agreement (e.g., United Nations country membership assessments), are not identified as part of a donor government’s family planning assistance even if the multilateral organization in turn directs some of these funds to family planning. Rather, these would be considered as family planning funding provided by the multilateral organization and are not included in this report.

1. Family planning totals are different from those reported last year due to updated data received after the 2023 report was published. Donor amounts do not exactly sum up to total amounts due to rounding. ↩︎
2. The U.S. decline in its core contribution to UNFPA in 2023 was due to a one-time increase that occurred in the previous year. In 2022, the U.S. core contribution to UNFPA included the direct appropriation (US$30.6 million) provided by Congress as well as a one-time US$20 million contribution provided by the Biden administration through available funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (P.L. 117-2). ↩︎
3. In 2023, the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) undertook an update of its family planning funding data including a move from reporting disbursements by fiscal year to calendar year. Updated data for the entire period were not at the time of publication. As such, U.K. totals for 2021-2023 are based on the calendar year; totals for 2012-2020 are still based on the U.K. fiscal year and will be updated in the next report (overall trends are not expected to change as a result of the forthcoming update). The 2021 and 2022 totals previously reported were considered preliminary estimates and have been revised. All U.K. totals are based on the revised-Muskoka methodology. ↩︎
4. The assessment that total U.S. family planning funding was flat in 2023 compared to 2022 is based on the amounts specified by the U.S. Congress in annual appropriations bills. The family planning amounts specified by Congress were the same in 2022 and 2023. The U.S. family planning total for 2022 as presented in this report is slightly higher than 2023 due to a one-time additional contribution to UNFPA’s core resources provided by the Biden administration (see Multilateral section). ↩︎
5. In most cases, donor governments provide funding data in their currency of origin, which are converted to U.S. dollars for this report (see Methods). ↩︎
6. In 2023, the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) undertook an update of its family planning funding data including a move from reporting disbursements by fiscal year to calendar year. Updated data for the entire period were not at the time of publication. As such, U.K. totals for 2021-2023 are based on the calendar year; totals for 2012-2020 are still based on the U.K. fiscal year and will be updated in the next report (overall trends are not expected to change as a result of the forthcoming update). The 2021 and 2022 totals previously reported were considered preliminary estimates and have been revised. All U.K. totals are based on the revised-Muskoka methodology. ↩︎
7. The assessment that total U.S. family planning funding was flat in 2023 compared to 2022 is based on the amounts specified by the U.S. Congress in annual appropriations bills. The family planning amounts specified by Congress were the same in 2022 and 2023. The U.S. family planning total for 2022 as presented in this report is slightly higher than 2023 due to a one-time additional contribution to UNFPA’s core resources provided by the Biden administration (see Multilateral section). ↩︎
8. “Other DAC Countries”, which includes: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, European Union, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland, is not listed under any assessment of increasing, decreasing, or remaining flat because there may be differences among the donor governments included. ↩︎
9. In most cases, donor governments provide funding data in their currency of origin, which are converted to U.S. dollars for this report (see Methods). ↩︎
10. “Other DAC Countries”, which includes: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, European Union, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland, is not listed under any assessment of increasing, decreasing, or remaining flat because there may be differences among the donor governments included. ↩︎
11. The family planning share of UNFPA’s core resources is based on several sources including: expenditure totals as reported in UNFPA’s annual report; family planning expenditure totals as presented on UNFPA’s Programme Expenses Portal (see here), and direct communication with UNFPA (see Methods). ↩︎
12. The U.S. decline in its core contribution to UNFPA in 2023 was due to a one-time increase that occurred in the previous year. In 2022, the U.S. core contribution to UNFPA included the direct appropriation (US$30.6 million) provided by Congress as well as a one-time US$20 million contribution provided by the Biden administration through available funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (P.L. 117-2). ↩︎
13. “Other DAC Countries”, which includes: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, European Union, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland, is not listed under any assessment of increasing, decreasing, or remaining flat because there may be differences among the donor governments included. ↩︎
14. UNFPA, “United Nations Population Fund, Statistical and financial review, 2023 – Annexes, Report of the Executive Director”; April, 2024. ↩︎
15. UNFPA, Transparency Portal (see here); accessed November 2024. ↩︎