Resilience Through Partnership: PAI’s 2025 Year in Review

Dear Friends,

As 2025 comes to a close, I have been reflecting on what this year demanded of our movement—and on the strength that carried us through it.

At PAI, we often say that progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights is powered by partnership. This year affirmed that truth. As long-standing systems were dismantled and reproductive health was explicitly targeted, it was partnership—across countries, institutions, and movements—that enabled us to respond with clarity and purpose.

This was not a year of waiting to see how events might unfold. It was a year of leaning in.

Meeting the Moment With Clarity

Early in the year, the dismantling of U.S. foreign assistance infrastructure and the freeze on global health funding sent immediate shockwaves across the sector. Long-standing programs were eliminated. Technical expertise was sidelined. Family planning and reproductive health were placed squarely in the crosshairs.

Our partners felt the impact immediately: clinics closed, health workers lost their jobs, contraceptive supplies were stranded, and advocacy space narrowed overnight. These were not abstract policy debates—they were real disruptions to health systems and to people’s lives.

PAI responded by elevating evidence when confusion and over-compliance threatened to magnify harm; provided real-time analysis to policymakers, donors, and partners; and made deliberate choices to remain vocal when silence would have carried its own risks.

Defending Accountability in Washington

Throughout the year, PAI played a central role in defending global sexual and reproductive health and rights in Washington.

Our team worked closely with congressional offices navigating rescissions packages, appropriations negotiations, and the re-expansion of harmful policies such as the Global Gag Rule. We helped draft and socialize legislative language, supported amendments to protect family planning funding, and produced widely used side-by-side bill comparisons so lawmakers and staff understood what was at stake.

When reports emerged that the U.S. government intended to incinerate nearly $10 million in taxpayer-funded contraceptives warehoused overseas, PAI briefed reporters, organized a standing-room-only Capitol Hill briefing, and supported legislative efforts—including the Saving Lives and Taxpayer Dollars Act—to stop the destruction of life-saving supplies.

Convening When Leadership Was Needed

As institutions fractured, PAI leaned into one of its most enduring roles: connector and convener.

In March, we partnered with the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights to bring a delegation of European and Canadian parliamentarians to Washington, DC. Together with U.S. advocates, they exchanged lessons on defending reproductive health funding, navigating political backlash, and sustaining cross-party support.

Throughout the year, we also convened advocates, donors, and policymakers through briefings and global fora—including the World Bank Spring and Fall Meetings, the World Bank Civil Society Policy Forum, the UN Commission on Population and Development, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the Financing for Development Conference and the International Conference on Family Planning in Bogotá—reinforcing that leadership on SRHR is shared and global.

Staying Visible—and Credible

PAI made deliberate choices about how and where we showed up in 2025.

Our media engagement ensured evidence shaped the public narrative. Our experts were featured by Reuters, NPR, The Hill, Ms. Magazine, Foreign Policy’s Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, and others, providing rapid analysis on U.S. policy actions and their real-world consequences for reproductive health access.

Sustaining Partners and Long-Term Impact

Even as funding contracted, we remained focused on sustaining partners and strengthening long-term impact.

Through renewed and new institutional support—including a multi-year renewal from the Hewlett Foundation for the Reproductive Health Advocacy Partnership and a new Gates Foundation grant to accelerate policy action for family planning—we helped ensure advocacy organizations in Zambia, Malawi, and beyond could continue their work.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, we advanced the Acceso model—improving Indigenous and Afro-descendant access to SRHR in Mexico, supporting implementation of emergency contraception rulings in Peru, and deepening engagement with PAHO, the OAS, and CLACAI. A new short film, reflecting more than seven years of work in the region, captures both the policy impact and the human realities that drive this work—connecting evidence to lived experience.

Contributing Meaningfully at ICFP 2025

PAI played a substantive leadership role at the 2025 International Conference on Family Planning in Bogotá, alongside more than 4,000 participants. We contributed multiple abstracts with partners, spoke on several panels—including the Youth Pre-Conference alongside UNFPA and FP2030 leaders—and hosted an official side event focused on sustaining civil society leadership and accountability amid shrinking civic space.

Throughout the week, PAI’s booth served as an active hub for targeted Skill Shares, where our team and partners shared practical tools on coalition building, U.S. policy dynamics, advocacy communications, and financing strategy. These engagements reflect how PAI uses global convenings to translate investment into concrete capacity, connection, and leadership across the field.

Building Technical Leadership for What Comes Next

2025 was also a year of deep technical investment.

PAI developed and refined advocacy tools grounded in six decades of experience—from coalition-building guidance and political economy analysis to climate-SRHR frameworks and multi-sectoral family planning advocacy tools—responding directly to partner demand for practical support navigating complex systems and power dynamics.

Expanding the Movement at Home: Freedom Starts With Her

We also made a deliberate choice to invest more deeply in U.S.-based public engagement.

That commitment led to the launch of Freedom Starts With Her, a campaign connecting reproductive freedom in the United States with the lived realities of women and girls globally. Through a campaign video, advocacy primer, and targeted outreach, the initiative translated complex policy decisions into human consequences and expanded who understands—and speaks up for—global SRHR. This work reinforced, rather than replaced, PAI’s policy and technical leadership.

Sixty Years—and the Work Ahead

This year also marked PAI’s 60th anniversary.

We honored the milestone by gathering partners and allies, including the Executive Director of UNFPA, Diene Keita, whose remarks underscored the indispensable role of civil society leadership in advancing reproductive rights and staying focused on outcomes for women and young people. We also recognized Craig Lasher for 44 years of principled policy leadership and coalition-building that have strengthened both PAI and the broader SRHR ecosystem.

These moments reminded me that PAI’s impact has never been defined by a single year or campaign. It is built through long-term commitment—to partnership, to evidence, and to action.

Closing Reflections

As we close 2025, I am deeply grateful to our partners, staff, Board, and supporters around the world.

Progress has never been linear.
And leadership has never been optional.

Together, we enter our next decade clear-eyed, committed, and ready to continue shaping what comes next.

With gratitude,

Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins
President and CEO