Globally, an estimated 1 out of 70 people are affected by a humanitarian crisis with approximately 132 million people across the world in need of assistance (UNOCHA, 2018c). Due to natural or man-made emergencies disrupting the functioning of communities and causing widespread human, material, economic, or environment loss, affected people cannot cope using their own resources and need national or international assistance (Singh et al., 2018). While such investments have increased significantly, there are substantial funding gaps for humanitarian aid (UNOCHA, 2018a). These funding limitations have restricted humanitarian response efforts, leaving large numbers of displaced individuals without adequate healthcare services. Approximately a quarter of those facing internal and cross-border displacement are women and girls of reproductive age representing a large population in need of critical basic reproductive healthcare services, including family planning (UNFPA, 2018). Yet, despite clear evidence of demand for family planning within humanitarian crises, response efforts suffer from several challenges linked to humanitarian funding dynamics.
In light of these challenges, the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Health Policy Plus (HP+) project conducted a review of the humanitarian crisis response planning processes, cases, and associated literature to understand how family planning needs are managed and financed across humanitarian crisis contexts. This report presents the critical challenges, key lessons learned, and possible opportunities that HP+ has identified to help improve financing for family planning as part of humanitarian response efforts.
