As the stories start to emerge about the extra billions committed to supporting better family planning , attention should now turn to the problems faced by governments and health workers in fulfilling the laudable aims. A sober assessment reveals that, enthusiastic announcements aside, those involved in the family-planning summit would do well to heed the lessons learnt from wider efforts to improve maternal health. As a new ODI/Save the Children report shows, increasing access to and improving the uptake of family-planning methods will take rather more than distributing condoms. The increased resources announced today are welcome, but they will almost certainly not be sufficient.