The UK, through its Department for International Development today announced its new Family Planning by Choice programme, which will provide £90 million of support for voluntary family planning in Ethiopia over the next four years.

The programme will work with the Federal Ministry of Health to give millions of women access to modern, voluntary family planning services across the country.

The programme aims to:

• Provide 13 million women with direct access to family planning information;

• Support 6 million current family planning users and attract three million more voluntary users;

• Prevent 15 million unwanted pregnancies and 300,000 maternal child deaths.

The programme will:

• Enable over 3,000 health facilities, mostly rural health centres, to provide quality family planning services;

• Establish 100 Quality Assurance Hubs at referral and general hospitals; and,

• Establish 10 family planning Centres of Excellence at teaching hospitals.

By providing family planning choices for everyone who wants it, Ethiopia will be able to: increase women’s voice, choice and control over their reproductive health; slow down population growth; and enhance economic growth.

This programme is part of the UK’s global leadership on family planning, and was announced as part of a package of UK support around the world at the London Family Planning Summit on 11 July 2017.

The Summit, co-hosted by the UK Secretary of State for International Development, Priti Patel, Melinda Gates (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and Natalia Kanem (UN Population Fund – UNFPA), looked at practical measures to reduce costs and increase availability for the millions of women who want contraception, but can’t afford it or get hold of it.

Speaking about the new UK support for family planning world-wide, the Secretary of State for International Development, Priti Patel said:

It’s truly astonishing that in today’s world there are still 214 million women around the world who do not want to get pregnant, but who are not currently using modern methods of family planning.

Britain is leading the world on sexual and reproductive health, helping millions more women in the world’s poorest countries to access and use desperately-needed family planning services.

But this isn’t a job for the UK alone and that’s why at this global Summit governments from around the world have come together to make commitments on family planning to address the long term need and unsustainable population growth.

We are supporting the world’s poorest women to take control of their lives, so they can finish their education, get better jobs and in turn provide for their smaller, planned families rather than being trapped in a cycle of grinding poverty through unplanned pregnancies.

Notes to editors:

• Ethiopia has made significant progress in increasing modern family planning uptake, nearly one-in-three women in Ethiopia are now using modern family planning methods, compared to less than one-in-thirty 25 years ago.

• Despite this progress, Ethiopia’s population has doubled in the last 25 years, from around 50 million in 1991 to 102 million in 2016. If the current fertility trend continues, the country’s population is likely to double again in the next 35 years, which could undermine Ethiopia’s ambition to reach middle income status by 2025.

• Three and half million (one-in-five) married women of reproductive age are currently not using contraception, but wish to postpone their next birth, or stop childbearing altogether. This programme will enable these women to use family planning.

• The public health service delivers four-fifths of family planning services.

The existing Calstock flood embankment was improved in the 1980s following a significant flood in the village. It still plays an important role in reducing flood risk in Calstock, but requires periodic repairs.

In 2012/13 the Environment Agency carried out emergency work on just over 100 metres of the embankment. This work incorporated less than 10% of the total embankment length, but cost in excess of £300,000. Maintaining the current embankment in its existing location on a ‘patch and repair basis’ is not sustainable.

The Environment Agency is now looking at ways to continue to manage flood risk in the village. Likely options will include moving the existing embankment inland away from the river where it will be under less pressure from erosion.

Project manager Dan Boswell said:

It’s our priority to do everything we can to protect people from flooding.

Unfortunately the current embankment is no longer viable so we have to look at other options to maintain the current level of flood protection for Calstock. One of the options involves moving the existing embankment inland.

In addition to flood risk management benefits, moving the embankment would enable the creation of reed-bed habitat attracting additional wildlife. It is important to note that we are looking at all options which may be available to us. We will be talking to the community about these before final decisions are made.

The Environment Agency is looking to work with local partners to ensure that people can still use this area recreationally. Currently the Environment Agency has granted a permissive footpath across the embankment and they are keen that the footpath should continue in some form, but this will require the collaboration of local partners.

Over the next few months the Environment Agency’s consultants will be carrying out ground investigations and topographic surveys to help them develop suitable options. When they have developed these the Environment Agency will arrange a drop-in session in Calstock for the community to come along and view and comment on proposals. This is likely to take place in the autumn.

The Environment Agency is spending more than £2.5 billion to build flood schemes around the country, which will better protect 300,000 homes by 2021.