Family planning for 'healthier, wealthier' Africa

Abidjan : Family planning helps people in Africa to be healthier and wealthier, as women without contraceptives become locked in "a cycle of poverty," Melinda Gates told AFP as a conference on the topic was held in Ivory Coast.

"When a woman has access to contraceptives she can lift herself out of poverty, and if she doesn't have access to contraceptives, it locks her inside a cycle of poverty for the rest of her life," said the wife of Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates, whose foundation is very active in the field.

Family planning has "huge health benefits for the woman and for her children, and it has economic benefits," Gates told AFP by telephone from the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan during the fifth annual meeting of a West African partnership on the topic.

Experts from nine countries met in Abidjan with technical and financial backers in the Ouagadougou Partnership, which aims to bring family planning to 2.2 million more people across the region by 2020.

"If (a woman) has less children and can space them, she is less likely to die. Her children grow up healthier and the family is wealthier," said Melinda Gates.