Donor Government Funding for Global Family Planning Declines to Lowest Level Since 2016

A new KFF analysis finds donor government funding for family planning efforts in low- and middle-income countries totaled US$1.35 billion in 2022, a decline of 9% (US$129 million) compared to 2021 ($1.48 billion). This figure marks the lowest level of funding since 2016 ($1.31 billion). While some of the decline was because of decreases in actual funding by most donor governments, more than two-thirds can be attributed to exchange rate fluctuations due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against most currencies during 2022. Funding from the United States wasn't affected by the currency fluctuations.

Funding from six donor governments (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and the U.K.) decreased in 2022, though the size of the decreases was significantly smaller when accounting for exchange rate fluctuations. Some of these declines were linked to budgetary pressures associated with the humanitarian response to the conflict in Ukraine, as cited by some donors. While funding from the United States remained flat, funding from the Netherlands and Norway increased.

Without standardizing funding levels to the size of donor economies, the United States remained the largest donor to family planning funding, providing 43% ($582.9 million) of total funding from donor governments, followed by the Netherlands ($217.4 million, 16%), the United Kingdom. ($174.7 million, 13%), Sweden ($121.3 million, 9%) and Canada ($88.3 million, 7%). However, when family planning funding is standardized by GDP, the Netherlands ranked first, followed by Sweden and the United Kingdom; the United States ranked 7th.

Most family planning funding is provided bilaterally (US$1.3 billion or 96%). The remaining 4% ($50 million) is for multilateral contributions to the United Nations Population Fund's core resources, adjusted for an estimated share for family planning.

The results of this analysis will be included in the annual progress report from FP2030, Measurement Report 2024.