Government budget line item for family planning and reproductive health

Definition:

Government health budget includes a   and reproductive health (RH). The line item could include a budget for the following FP/RH resources: human, financial, physical infrastructure, and/or commodities and material support.

This indicator complements another indicator, Percent of government health budget allocated to family planning and reproductive health.

Data Requirement:

Line item in the government health budget that is specifically for FP/RH

Data Source:

Health budget, either in local currency or US dollar conversion, at the national or sub-national level

Indicator Type: Yes/No

Purpose:

This indicator measures the commitment of government resources by either a government at the national or decentralized sub-national level to the FP/RH program. Creating a budget line item for contraceptives or FP more broadly is a relatively common strategy to help ensure funding for FP/RH in national budgets (Gribble, 2010). It is often one of the first objectives identified by many contraceptive security advocates because it helps to gauge the priority given to contraceptives in government health plans and policies. To continue to promote and sustain higher levels of modern contraceptive prevalence and provide a budgeted flow for FP/RH programming, low- and middle-income countries need to not only include FP/RH in their health budgets, but also increase public financing for FP and make domestic government spending the mainstay of their FP/RH programs (HIPs, 2018).

Issues:

Some countries do not separate FP from other health budgets, particularly reproductive health, so while FP may be sufficiently included in a government’s health budget, there may not be a separate line item for it.

Domestic financial commitments have not always translated to increased spending on FP (HIPs, 2018). Thus, just because there is a budget line item for FP does not mean the FP program will be funded at that amount.

Related content

Policy Environment

References:

Gribble J, 2010. “Financing Contraceptives: A New Funding Environment”. Population Reference Bureau. https://www.prb.org/resources/toolkit-financing-contraceptives-a-new-funding-environment/

High Impact Practices in Family Planning (HIPs). Domestic public financing: Building a sustainable future for family planning programs. Washington, DC: USAID; 2018 Apr. Available from: https://www.fphighimpactpractices.org/briefs/domestic-public-financing/