The number of people in Bangladesh who chose a permanent method of contraception increased dramatically last year thanks largely to Marie Stopes Clinic Society’s rural outreach work.

Last year, 190,000 people opted for this method of contraception, 65,000 more than in the previous year. Marie Stopes Clinic Society provided 125,000 of those procedures (an increase of 80,000 over the year before); their work alongside the Government of Bangladesh proved directly accountable for this astonishing increase across the country.

Marie Stopes Clinic Society’s contribution represents an incredible 65% of all permanent contraceptive procedures delivered in the country. As if this performance alone weren’t impressive enough, it is likely that it contributed to the decline in the country’s fertility rate recorded over the same period, from 3.3 to 3.

Such gains don’t come easily in Bangladesh, where much of the population is spread over rural areas. The teams responsible for increasing access to permanent contraception services use all available transport methods to reach clients, including motorboats for those communities who are often cut off by seasonal water rises for months at a time. The resulting increase in Bangladesh’s overall contraception rate is a result of this extraordinary commitment to poor, rural, hard to reach couples.

MSI's work in Bangladesh