World: UNFPA Annual Report 2025

Country: World Source: United Nations Population Fund Please refer to the attached file. A YEAR IN REVIEW 2025 was fraught with challenges: deepening geopolitical divides, escalating humanitarian crises, and widening inequalities that severely strained the multilateral system. For its part, UNFPA faced shifting global priorities, reduced funding, and increasing backlash against women’s rights, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health. Yet through it all, our teams upheld our mandate — advancing individual rights and choices while helping countries address population trends, inequality and resilience challenges — and delivered for women, girls and young people. Last year alone, UNFPA’s life-saving sexual and reproductive health services reached more than 40 million people. In crisis settings, UNFPA safely assisted half a million childbirths. We remained the world’s largest provider of contraceptives and maternal health medicines to developing countries, preventing some 5 million sexually transmitted infections and tens of thousands of maternal deaths. Some 260, 000 girls were saved from female genital mutilation. All of this was accomplished amid cuts to funding, particularly humanitarian funding. How? Because we are never complacent. UNFPA prides itself on being efficient, adaptive and agile, and on learning from what works. Our growing partner base, diversified funding sources and digital innovations enabled us to sustain critical services, even amid disruptions in the wider multilateral system. A major driver of our results is the trust we build with governments. We also scaled up partnerships with international financing institutions and worked with programme countries to grow significant domestic resource allocations for essential services representing a powerful shift towards sustainability and national ownership. Finally, both our most stalwart supporters and new donors trusted us to reach communities in need even – and especially – when others could not. As a result, UNFPA closed out its 2022-2025 strategic plan having produced results of scale and impact. For example, global efforts to reduce child marriage, female genital mutilation and maternal mortality accelerated during this period, reflecting our unique combination of normative leadership, technical expertise and operational reach. Today, more women and couples can decide freely whether and when to have children and more girls are in school, even if the pace of progress is not fast enough. UNFPA has begun implementing its 2026-2029 strategic plan, which renews its focus on achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health while also supporting countries with the data-driven demographic intelligence they need to prepare for population shifts — something our specialized mandate on population and development ensures we can deliver. At UNFPA, we are unwavering in our commitment to stand with Member States to advance well-being across the life course; deliver transformative results; and build the resilience of individuals, communities and countries. There is no inevitability to the fact that 700 women die each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. This is something we can and will change. That is why we are doubling down on proven solutions — including supporting midwives — underpinned by sustainable financing. In uncertain times, one thing is certain: UNFPA will remain steadfast — present in the most vulnerable settings, standing with those furthest behind, and standing for sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, everywhere — because everyone counts.

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