Kenyans averted a total of 4.6 million unintended pregnancies during the Covid-19 years of 2020 and 2021, new statistics show.
Averted pregnancies are calculated by estimating the number of women currently using contraception who would become pregnant if they were not on any method.
The new report shows due to the increased use of contraceptives, in 2020 about 2,260,000 unintended pregnancies were averted.
Last year, about 2,340,000 pregnancies were averted, according to the latest annual progress report by the FP2030, the world’s only global partnership for family planning.
It is supported by governments and private institutions such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Africa has made the greatest gains in contraceptive use over the last decade,” the FP2030 Measurement Report 2021 on Kenya says.
It estimates that 563,000 of the averted pregnancies in 2020 would have resulted in unsafe abortions and 5,800 mothers would have died in the process.
In 2021, about 583,000 averted pregnancies would have resulted in abortions where 6,000 mothers would have died, the report suggests.
It shows in total, only 42 per cent of all women of reproductive in Kenya, or 6.1 million women, are using modern contraception.
Among married women only, 58.1 per cent or 4.7 million of them are using modern contraception.
Unintended pregnancies are considered costly because of the direct expenses for the pregnancy and child care, and the resultant problems to the mother, such as maternal depression.
The report also warns donor funding for family planning in Africa is reducing.
“While much of the data paints a tremendous story of resilience amidst the global pandemic, the last bullet point should give us pause for thought,” it says.
“Not only did the US$100 million decline in funding represent the first reduction in total bilateral funding since 2016, but the risk of losing the progress gained in the last decade is far from over, with additional funding cuts ahead.”
Key donors had in 2019 announced they would stop buying family planning products for Kenya.
The donors — the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — said the cutbacks will be gradual, until 2025 when the Kenyan government should fully foot the bill.
However, Kenya renegotiated the cutbacks in November last year and secured an additional Sh2.5 billion for family planning for the next two years.
Kenya said it will still begin to fund its family planning activities in 2025.
“In the initial plan we were to have 100 per cent funding from the government of Kenya for our family planning commodities but because of the pandemic’s economic impact we have requested to push this to 2025/26 two years forward,” said Issak Bashir, who
heads the Department of Family Health at the Health ministry.
Family planning was fully funded by the Kenyan government before health services were devolved in 2013.
However, donors moved in when the new county governments failed to allocate money for the same.
“Devolution saw a major deep in the financing towards family planning until we realised very quickly that this matter was too strategic and too important to be held at that level and we pushed the matter back at the national level,” Health PS Susan Mochache said.