In support of the updated Every Woman Every Child Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health (2016-2030). Marie Stopes International is committed to:
- Reaching 12 million new users of contraception by 2020, representing 10% of FP2020’s overall goal to enable 120 million more women and girls to access contraception by 2020.
- Double our number of clients, providing quality contraception and safe abortion services to 40 million individuals by 2020, prioritising the most underserved and marginalised communities.
- Providing 6 million safe abortion and post abortion care services. To remove unnecessary policy restrictions to increase access to reproductive health services (information, supplies and services) and decrease the cost of providing these services.
Founded in 1976, Marie Stopes International (MSI) has grown from a single clinic in central London to one of the world’s largest providers of high quality, affordable contraception and safe abortion services. Choice is at the heart of everything that we do, and our mission remains clear: to empower women and girls to choose if and when they have children. Because we know – from our many years of providing services all over the world – that access to contraception and safe abortion changes lives.
We provide high quality services, in some of the world’s most hard-to-reach communities, often using innovative approaches to reach the clients who need us. Our 11,000 team members provide services across 37 countries, from our safe abortion clinics in the UK to our newest outreach services in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In our international programmes, over 80% of all clients served were living in communities with the greatest need; adolescents for whom contraceptive access is invariably heavily restricted; those using a method of contraception for the first time, and those living in extreme poverty, where neither the public or private sector provides affordable options.
In 2019, there were over 32 million people using a method of contraception that we supplied, a further 4.6 million people turned to us for safe abortion and post-abortion care services, and we delivered 36.8 million couple years of protection (CYPs), over 2.2 million additional CYPs compared to 2018. These services prevented 13.1 million unintended pregnancies, 6.5 million unsafe abortions and 34,600 maternal deaths.
As need and demand for our services continues to rise, we must work together to go further, and do more to ensure that every woman has choice. With the world in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing number of people in vulnerable situations, as a result of conflict and climate change, this matters now more than ever.
