Washington, D.C., April 2, 2012: DKT International 2011 results indicate that family planning and safe sex methods in DKT’s emerging country programs are more accessible and more utilized than ever before. The Washington D.C. based social marketing organization employs traditional marketing techniques, social media and the infrastructure of the commercial sector in each of the 18 countries it serves. Through these tools DKT was able to provide more than 650 million condoms and millions of other safe sex and family planning products and services to more than 22 million couples in 2011— an increase of 10% over the previous year’s results.
Placing DKT’s efforts in a comparable frame of reference, Planned Parenthood, the premier provider of family planning services in the U.S., serves 3- 4 million couples with contraceptive services each year, preventing 584,000 pregnancies, according to the most recent figures. DKT, with its less labor intensive social marketing approach, reaches over 20 million couples, and last year helped prevent nearly six million pregnancies. Planned Parenthood’s international affiliate, The International Family Planning Federation, provided services to 33 million clients in a recent year, equating to 10-15 million couples receiving contraceptive protection for 1 year. During that period, DKT International provided 22 million couples with contraceptive protection for one year.
“With more than 99% of the DKT staff based in the countries they serve, we are uniquely able to use a product and service delivery model that continually evolves based on community need and that incorporates relevant and innovative tactics, to make a profound impact on people’s lives,” comments Christopher H. Purdy, Executive Vice President of DKT International.
In the not-so-distant past, modern family planning methods were completely inaccessible in many emerging countries. By contrast, DKT now provides condoms at a cost of less than 2 cents in such countries as the Congo and Ethiopia and is the source of contraception for an estimated 50% of all Ethiopian couples using modern family planning methods. The combination of such results across all countries that DKT serves is a significant contribution to women’s health in the developing world and includes nearly 7 million unwanted pregnancies avoided and more than 1.4 million abortions averted just last year.
Since 1989, DKT International’s core mission has been to provide safe and affordable options for family planning and HIV prevention through social marketing. The 2011 results for DKT’s 20 programs in 18 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia reaffirm the organization’s role as the largest private provider of family planning products and services in the developing world.
Sandra Gass, Director of DKT-Congo, sums up DKT’s overall positive impact: “As infant mortality decreases, contraceptive rates increase; if mothers are healthy, the community is healthy.” www.dktinternational.org
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