UNFPA South Africa

Our Mission

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and that every young person's potential is fulfilled.

UNFPA Goals

The goals of UNFPA - achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health (including family planning), promoting reproductive rights, reducing maternal mortality and accelerating progress on the ICPD agenda and MDG 5 - are inextricably linked. UNFPA also focuses on improving the lives of youths and women by advocating for human rights and gender equality and by promoting the understanding of population dynamics. Population dynamics, including growth rates, age structure, fertility and mortality and migration have an effect on every aspect of human, social and economic progress. And sexual and reproductive health and women's empowerment all powerfully affect and are influenced by population trends.

How We Work

UNFPA partners with governments, other United Nations agencies, communities, NGOs, foundations and the private sector to raise awareness and mobilize the support and resources to achieve its mission. The Fund is fully committed to a more effective, coherent and better coordinated UN system that 'delivers as one,' the essence of the UN reform process.

Starting in 2007, UNFPA decentralized its operations to become a more field-centred, efficient and strategic partner to the countries it serves. To do so, it established five regional and six subregional offices in the field that help coordinate work in about 150 countries, areas and territories through 129 country offices.