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Who are we?

IDEA Initiative is Planned Parenthood Global’s social innovation lab for Repro Rights in Latin America.

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IDEA Initiative is designed to motivate the entrepreneur, technology, communications and social impact investment ecosystems to explore creativity, innovation and talent to transform ideas into solutions for the most stubborn and entrenched issues in health and reproductive rights in Latin America.

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For 50 years, Planned Parenthood Global has supported access to sexual and reproductive health care and advocated for reproductive rights in Latin America and around the world, through strategic alliances with multiple stakeholders to contribute to a powerful global movement.

Learn more about Planned Parenthood Global.

Our Challenge

Every person has the fundamental human right to decide whether or not to have children, when and with whom, which includes having the information and the means to exercise that right without being discriminated against in any way. Allowing people to freely exercise their reproductive rights has a huge positive impact for themselves, their families and their countries in every ways. For example:

  • People have higher levels of education, stay in school for longer periods of time and with better outcomes.
  • They have greater access to employment, in better paid positions, and are more stable and more productive.
  • People have a lower risk of suffering from or causing gender violence.
  • They may access bigger and healthier housing in better neighborhoods.
  • People will improve their food security and nutrition, as well as reduce maternal and infant illnesses and deaths.
  • They form a stable relationship at the right time for them; single-parent households are reduced and financial autonomy improves.
  • People have greater purchasing power, increase their consumption capacity and break the cycle of poverty and social exclusion.
  • The States have higher tax collection, lower spending on medical and social assistance and increase their Gross Domestic Product.

Despite this undeniable positive impact, the exercise of reproductive rights in Latin America faces huge barriers in key areas:

  • The expansion of comprehensive sexuality education and the availability of modern and effective contraceptives. The access to legal and safe abortion.
  • Restrictive laws and public policies. Insufficient or inefficiently allocated public budgets.
  • Social norms that perpetuate prejudices against the exercise of reproductive rights.

This reality causes, among others, the following consequences:

  • Latin America is the only region in the world where children and adolescent pregnancies increase every year. Each year, more than 2 million adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 become pregnant, impacting their educational career and job opportunities.

  • Although abortion is a safe and medically simple procedure, 760,000 women are treated annually for complications resulting from the need to turn to unsafe abortion.

  • More than 97% of women of reproductive age live in countries where abortion is highly restricted by law and socio-cultural norms.

  • More than 1 million girls and adolescents have suffered sexual violence.

  • 65% of women of reproductive age want to avoid pregnancy but cannot.

  • 24 million women have an unmet need for modern contraception.

Improving this reality and achieving a positive impact for Latin America’s development is possible, if we can overcome the constant barriers that limit one's ability to exercise their reproductive rights. An exciting challenge!

Theory of Change

Organizations working in the reproductive health and rights field face an urgent need to innovate in a world that is increasingly changing, where traditional donors have drastically reduced their support, new ecosystems to address social problems have been developed, and collaboration between people and multidisciplinary teams that involve creativity and different experiences is increasingly necessary.

The IDEA Initiative aims to build synergies from and among these ecosystems and connect them to co-create innovative solutions to meet challenges in sexual and reproductive health in Latin America.

What do we do?

  • We work with people, organizations and companies who are passionate for finding creative and disruptive solutions to the barriers to access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, advocating for the change of restrictive laws that hinder the exercise of their reproductive rights, and transforming social norms that perpetuate the prejudices on reproductive rights.
  • We invest in disruptive ideas resulting from the intersection between technology, advertising, communication and social impact entrepreneurship with reproductive rights.
  • We help non-profit organizations to transform themselves into social impact ventures.
  • We support the creation of new social impact ventures through intensive training, professional coaching and seed capital.
  • We motivate a social innovation ecosystem consisted of leaders in the advertising, technology, social media, social entrepreneurship, social impact investment funds, activists and non-profit sectors.

Programs

Our Impact

  • 12

    Disruptive projects supported

  • 29

    Social impact ventures supported

  • 12

    Networking, inspiration and learning events held

  • 1.193

    Participants in IDEA Events

  • 131

    Companies and organizations involved