David and Lucile Packard Foundation manage The Population and Reproductive Health program and are committed to promoting reproductive health and rights, with a focus on high quality information and services.
We place a special emphasis on engaging and serving youth, and believe that young people have the best potential for building and sustaining a movement of change.
Quality sexual and reproductive health information and services are fundamental to everyone’s health and well-being, particularly women and youth.
We aim to:
- Improve the quality of comprehensive sexuality education, voluntary contraception, and abortion care.
- Strengthen service delivery, build leadership and advocacy capacity, and shift social and cultural norms to allow women and youth to make their own reproductive health care decisions.
- Forge partnerships with global research and advocacy organizations, especially networks led by youth, and to create positive and effective messages about reproductive health and rights at the regional and global levels.
People all over the world—particularly women and youth—lack access to quality reproductive health care. Millions of women want, but cannot get, modern contraceptives. Far too many girls under the age of 18 marry and begin bearing children.
The number of young in the world is at an all-time high, and most of them do not receive the sexual and reproductive health information and services they need and want. Gender inequity, societal norms, culture wars, and the priorities of policy makers all contribute these disparities.
For over fifty years, the Packard Foundation has been committed to helping find solutions to these pressing problems:
- 214 million women have an unmet need for contraception
- 1 in 4 of the world’s population—1.8 billion—are youth ages 10 to 24
- 21.6 million women have unsafe abortions each year
- 37,000 child marriages take place every day
Despite these challenges, it is possible to provide quality reproductive health services and information.
Advances in contraceptive and communications technology enable us to reach even the most vulnerable communities. Our grantees are working with a growing youth population to empower the next generation to lead the way and find more solutions. And pioneering research helps us understand how best to support advocates and innovative programs around the world. We are committed to making quality reproductive health care a reality.
Follow the link for more info on David and Lucile Packard Foundation grants and funds