Family Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

1. I recently found a new, highly cost-effective, charity named Lafiya Nigeria to donate to. It provides family planning services in Nigeria.
2. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region of the world that has the lowest income and highest child mortality rate, and it is experiencing explosive population growth.
3. Lafiya Nigeria averts pregnancies by providing free contraception, which helps to reduce the number of kids that die from that high child mortality rate.
4. This makes Lafiya Nigeria one of the most cost-effective ways of preventing the deaths of kids under 5 years old. I estimate they can save a child's life for less than $1,000.
5. Lafiya Nigeria is also a good charity for those that are pro-life, because it only provides contraception (a 3-month self-injectable named Sayana Press) and counseling, not abortion services.

Below are the relevant statistics.

Fertility rates in births per woman:

• World: 2.26
• USA: 1.66
• Sub-Saharan Africa: 4.53

Average income as GDP per capita:

• World: $13,100
• USA: $81,700
• Sub-Saharan Africa: $1,690

Child mortality rate (under 5 years old):

• World: 3.7%
• USA: 0.7%
• Sub-Saharan Africa: 7.4%

Next, I will go over my calculation of how much it costs to avert the death of a child under 5 years old ($550) by donating to Lafiya Nigeria.

Contraceptives and other family planning services can avert the deaths of kids under 5 years old indirectly by averting births in sub-Saharan Africa. For each birth that is averted, the child mortality rate is effectively reduced to the average child mortality rate world-wide. Sub-Saharan Africa has a child mortality rate of ~7.4% and the world at large has a child mortality rate of ~3.7%. That means that relocating a birth from sub-Saharan Africa to somewhere else, on average, reduces the child mortality rate by 7.4% - 3.7% = 3.7%.

1. It costs Lafiya Nigeria about $10 to avert an unintended pregnancy.
2. But we still need to account for the fact that not all pregnancies result in births. It's estimated that ~60% of unintended pregnancies result in births and about 1/3 of unintended births averted result in a pregnancy later (meaning the birth is just delayed, not averted).
3. If each unintended pregnancy leads to 0.6 unintended births and 2/3 of those are not replaced by additional births later, then each unintended pregnancy averted results in 0.4 averted births.
4. If Lafiya Nigeria can avert an unintended pregnancy for $10, then it would cost $10 / 0.4 = $25 to avert one birth.
5. If the child mortality rate is 3.7% lower in the rest of the world compared to sub-Saharan Africa, then each averted birth results in 0.037 averted deaths of children under 5 years old.
6. So averting each death of a child would cost $25 / 0.037 ~= $675.

There are many other benefits of family planning and contraceptive services in sub-Saharan Africa, additionally, but I think the child deaths averted are the largest. For example, if a girl or woman can delay having a child, it can empower her to stay in school longer, improving her work prospects and ability to care for any children she might have later. It also reduces maternal mortality (deaths of women during child birth), both because of the births averted and also because the maternal mortality rate is higher when women and girls give birth at a younger age. So even delaying a birth can prevent deaths of women and girls. And it reduces population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the lowest income, so that there can be fewer people living with poverty in the future.

To donate to Lafiya Nigeria, you can go here: https://lafiyanigeria.org/donate/

There is a similar charity named MSI Reproductive Choices that also provides family planning services if you would like an alternative. There are a few differences between MSI Reproductive Choices and Lafiya Nigeria.

Differences

1. MSI Reproductive Choices provides a variety of family planning services, including multiple forms of contraception, counseling, and abortion services while Lafiya Nigeria only provides one form of contraception (Sayana Press) and counseling.
2. MSI Reproductive Choices operates in many locations around the world, not just Nigeria and not just sub-Saharan Africa. This is the main reason I prefer Lafiya Nigeria. The locations that MSI Reproductive Choices operates in don't all have a child mortality rate that is as high as Nigeria, and the population growth rate also is not as high, so it is more expensive to save the life of a child through MSI Reproductive Choices than through Lafiya Nigeria.
3. MSI Reproductive Choices has been around much longer than Lafiya Nigeria. It's been around since 1976 and Lafiya Nigeria was incubated in 2023.

To donate to MSI Reproductive Choices, you can go here: https://www.msichoices.org/donate/