The right to enjoy full, free and informed access to contraceptive information, services and supplies is central to sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as to the right to the highest attainable standard of health. These rights are universal, inalienable and indivisible, and States have a duty to respect, protect and fulfil these rights to the maximum of their available resources. There are a range of barriers and opportunities that either prevent or enable access to FP. Power, governance and accountability and women’s participation and leadership all influence the outcomes and capacity of key actors to deliver for FP.

Nepal has made pledges as part of FP2020 to address these barriers, including to execute a Costed Implementation Plan on Family Planning (FP) (2015-2020) within the Nepal Health Sector Program III (2015-2020); to formulate policies and strategies to address barriers to FP access for adolescents, youth, those living in rural areas, migrants and other marginalised groups, and improving the regulatory framework to promote public-private partnerships.

Implementation of FP2020 commitments has the potential to transform family planning provision, extending high quality services at scale and reaching the most marginalised. But entrenched institutional challenges and competing priorities in Nepal are slowing progress. Accountability interventions can alter this trend by working with a range of actors so that governments and service providers are better able to meet the commitments they have made, leveraging a scale of impact which would be unachievable by alternative interventions.

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