Why investing in family planning and sexual and reproductive health services is critical for Malawi’s COVID-19 response

The COVID-19 outbreak is placing a considerable strain on Malawi’s health system. With increased demand on public resources, the Government is faced with difficult decisions about which services to prioritise and what level
of funding to provide.

During the 2012 Family Planning Summit in London, the Government committed to increasing the proportion of women of reproductive age in Malawi using a modern method of contraception (mCPR) from 42% in 2010 to 60% by 2020. It will do this through reaching out to adolescents and young people, achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services and increasing domestic funds for this critical area.

Malawi has made significant progress towards meeting these commitments, but it still has a long way to go: domestic investment in family planning (FP) commodities is very low at 1.4% of total FP commodity needs, and only
46% of women in Malawi currently use a modern method of family planning.