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Bangladesh - 24% of women do not want pregnancy but are not using contraception. |
Such women are defined by DHS surveys as having an `unmet need' for family planning.
Unmet need does not necessarily mean that family planning services are not available. It may also mean that women lack information, or that the quality of the services on offer does not inspire the necessary confidence, or that women themselves have little say in the matter.
Nonetheless, where family planning services are considered to be strong - as in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, or Viet Nam - unmet demand is less than 15%. In eight of the sub-Saharan African countries surveyed, unmet need rises to between 30% and 42%.
The level of unmet demand says little about either overall demand or the level of contraceptive use. In both Botswana and Uganda, for example, unmet demand is estimated at 27%: but in Botswana the overall demand is 60% of which 33% is met, whereas in Uganda the overall demand is 32% of which only 5% is being met.
The measure of need
Percentage of currently married women aged 15-49 who want to stop
having children or to postpone the next pregnancy for at least two
years, but who are not using contraception
Sub-Saharan Africa ----------------------------------- Niger 18 Zambia 27 Nigeria 20 Burkina Faso 29 Cameroon 21 Mali 30 Namibia 21 Madagascar 31 Zimbabwe 23 Kenya 32 Guinea 25 Malawi 34 Burundi 26 Liberia 35 Botswana 27 Rwanda 36 Senegal 27 Ghana 37 Tanzania 27 Togo 42 Uganda 27 Asia, the Middle East and North Africa -------------------------------------- Viet Nam 11 Tunisia 20 Thailand 12 Jordan 23 Turkey 12 Bangladesh 24 Sri Lanka 13 Philippines 26 Indonesia 14 Pakistan 27 Egypt 20 Sudan 27 Morocco 20 Nepal 28 Latin America and the Caribbean ------------------------------------- Brazil 14 Bolivia 24 Colombia 16 Ecuador 25 Peru 16 Mexico 27 Dominican Rep. 17 Trinidad/Tobago 27 Paraguay 20 Guatemala 30 El Salvador 22Source: Updated from DHS Program, Women's lives and experiences, : a decade of research findings from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, 1994.