Urban Family Planning in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Critical Scoping Review.

James Duminy,John Cleland,Ilene S Speizer,Mark R Montgomery,Susan Parnell,Trudy Harpham

doi:10.3389/fgwh.2021.749636

Abstract

Health agendas for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should embrace and afford greater priority to urban family planning to help achieve a number of the global Sustainable Development Goals. The urgency of doing so is heightened by emerging evidence of urban fertility stalls and reversals in some sub-Saharan African contexts as well as the significance of natural increase over migration in driving rapid urban growth. Moreover, there is new evidence from evaluations of large programmatic interventions focused on urban family planning that suggest ways to inform future programmes and policies that are adapted to local contexts. We present the key dimensions and challenges of urban growth in LMICs, offer a critical scoping review of recent research findings on urban family planning and fertility dynamics, and highlight priorities for future research.

Highlights

Urban family planning (FP) is a pivot point for efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) because of its centrality to issues of gender, employment, poverty, and health [1]
The importance of recognizing and implementing an urban FP agenda is highlighted by demographic trends of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
This review demonstrates that urban FP scholarship addressing LMIC settings is broad and varied in its specific objectives, methodological elements, and geographic and thematic foci

Summary

Introduction

Urban family planning (FP) is a pivot point for efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) because of its centrality to issues of gender, employment, poverty, and health [1]. In the context of rapid urban growth and the urbanization of poverty in much of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, urban FP should be afforded greater recognition and priority within a broader health agenda. There is evidence of stalls and reversals in the fertility decline of some African cities, which will potentially sustain rapid urban growth rates in decades to come. The United Nations Population Division predicts that an additional 2.5 billion people will be added to the global urban population by 2050, with almost 90 per cent of this growth taking place in Asia and Africa [10]. The majority of future urban growth in LMICs will take place in smaller cities and towns that host higher rates of poverty and are the least equipped institutionally to deal with the challenges arising from rapid growth [10,11,12]

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion