The following is an excerpt from an article in Positive Luxury featuring PSI board member and global ambassador for our YouthAIDS prevention program Ashley Judd. The site had the opportunity to chat with Judd ahead of last week’s London Summit on Family Planning.

What do you expect from the summit?

What I expect from the summit is that modern family planning be put back on the international agenda. With the very appropriate emphasis in the past 15 years on the HIV/Aid crisis, and the lack at the time of a full integration of health services, family planning fell off the agenda. However it is absolutely key to poverty alleviation. Family planning increases the number of girls staying in school, which obviously has a whole cascade of positive benefits for her income generation, her family, her community. Family planning increases the health of girls and women, both by preventing maternal morbidity and mortality, as well as allowing a mother to have more resources, time and emotional and financial support to dedicate to the children she does have.

There are a variety of ways to alleviate poverty, all of which are important, such as land tenure, inheritance rights, legal rights and so on. But it is so wonderful that there’s a summit focussed on family planning, as there is a worldwide unmet need for safe contraceptives that women can choose to use according to their preference.