Since 1960, the family planning rate in the developing world has risen from about 10% to 55%, and average family size has fallen steeply in every region except Africa. Despite this progress, there are an estimated 120 million women in the developing world who do not want to become pregnant but who are not using family planning, and as a result, one pregnancy in every five is unwanted. The world average use of family planning is 57%. At the regional or group level, percentage use of family planning is: 14% in Sub-Saharan Africa; 44% in the Middle East and North Africa; 40% in South Asia; 74% in East Asia and the Pacific; 51% in Central America and the Caribbean; 65% in South America; 72% in Industrialized countries. Some countries in the developing world have notably high percentage family planning rates. They include: China (83); Mauritius (75); South Africa (50); Turkey (63); Sri Lanka (62); Thailand (66); Costa Rica (75%); Cuba (70); Argentina (74). According to the family planning effort index devised by the Population Council and the UN Population Fund, 12 developing countries increased their ratings by 30 points or more from the beginning to the end of the 1980s. Most of these countries started from a very low effort level in the early 1980s, and 9 of those nations are in Africa. The 12 nations and their respective points increase on the index are as follows: Botswana (48); Iran (46); Burkina Faso (41); Honduras (38); Guinea (35); Ghana (34); Niger (33); Syria (33); Zambia (33); Central African Republic (32); Lesotho (31); Madagascar (31).
According to the World Bank, total spending on family planning in developing countries amounts to US$4,700 million a year, of which 80% is borne by developing countries and 20% borne by external assistance. In addition, family planning programmes have never received more than 2% of official development assistance.