FAMILY PLANNING
By leveraging carbon markets, we are creating innovative and much needed funding mechanisms to support family planning clinics around the world
SDG Target 5.6: Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights
SDG Indicator 5.6.1: Proportion of women aged 15-49 years who make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care
Our Contributions
Promotes better access to healthcare
People can be educated on issues of family economics and health
Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights
Proper family planning eases economic stressors such as overconsumption and availability of jobs
Reduces consumption and carbon output
The benefits of
family planning
The benefits of family planning are beyond doubt. Access to sexual education and affordable contraception empowers women to take control of their fertility and their own life.
The benefits go well beyond their personal lives, and have a positive impact on their communities, countries and the world as a whole:
The challenge to family planning:
a growing funding gap
Family planning is facing a major funding challenge, worldwide.
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In developing countries alone, 214 million women who want to avoid pregnancy do not have access to a modern contraceptive method.
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Instead of filling this funding gap, some governments are defunding family planning; for example, the US government cut its funding to the UN Population Fund (US$300m), leaving millions of women without access to contraceptives
At Believe Green we are exploring innovative solutions to fill this funding gap.
Since family planning has been estimated to be the 7th most effective policy to combat climate change, one exciting opportunity is to quantify, certify and monetize carbon emission reductions from family planning, and use the revenues from the sale of carbon offsets to help fund family planning clinics around the world.
ThE opportunity:
carbon finance can help
fill the gap
Capturing the opportunity
Our vision is to create a new formal path to attract funds from the carbon markets towards planning programmes.
Currently we are:
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In the process of registering a carbon certification methodology that will allow family planning programs to quantify, certify and monetize the carbon emission reductions associated with their activities
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Carrying out pilot studies in Brazil and the Dominican Republic, as well as engaging with other programs in both developed and developing countries.
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We are building an d growing a coalition of partners to support the large-scale implementation of this idea.
Putting women’s
rights first
One of our primary goals is to improve women’s lives, so we are adhering to the following principles:
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Only rights based, voluntary programs can be certified. We are using existing USAID and US government eligibility criteria as part of the certification methodology and the application will be rigorously monitored.
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The carbon certification process is entirely non-interventional; we measure and certify the impact of family planning programs and generate revenues by selling the carbon offsets through the voluntary carbon markets.
the REAL struggle
Women face
This video, produced by Cordaid, illustrates in dramatic way the struggle that women around the world often have to undergo to obtain basic reproductive health services.
The goal of our initiative is to help eliminate this challenge.
