Giving Compass' Take:

• Despite global investments, there is still a $222 billion dollar funding gap for women's health that is necessary to end maternal deaths, meet the needs for family planning, and end gender-based violence. 

• What are the next steps for addressing these funding issues? How can you spread awareness about global women's health in your local community to garner support?

• Read about the significance of investing in women's health.

Leaders from dozens of countries made political and financial commitments to support the elimination of maternal deaths, gender-based violence, and harmful practices, as well as to increase accessibility to family planning by 2030, as part of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi, Kenya this week.

But Dr. Natalia Kanem, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), who together with the governments of Kenya and Denmark co-convened the summit, in her opening remarks said the ICPD Program of Action that was agreed upon in Cairo is “still far from reality.”

Dr. Gifty Addico, chief of commodity security branch in UNFPA’s technical division, also told Global Citizen that despite progress in accessibility to family planning options, millions of women do not have the ability to plan and prevent pregnancy.

“There is an unmet need in 232 million women who want family planning but are not using a contraceptive method. If we talk about about eliminating this [lack of access] by 2030, then we need to make even more significant investments than before,” she said.

During the summit, new research by UNFPA and the Johns Hopkins University was revealed, which showed that the total cost of achieving zero maternal deaths, zero unmet need for family planning, and zero gender-based violence and harmful practices within the next decade was $264 billion.

According to UNFPA, $42 billion in development assistance is expected to be spent on advancing these goals, leaving a gap of $222 billion.

Kanem urged leaders to increase their contributions to the fund.

“Our plead as UNFPA is for those who hold the purse strings to galvanize the resources that will lead to better productivity, more health and happiness, and alleviate the dire consequence of death when we turn a blind eye,” she said at the conference.

Read the full article about funding gap by Jacky Habib at Global Citizen.