Green Budget Contains $1 Billion for Family Planning and Reproductive Health Recommendation

Last week, PAI was one of 34 organizations, primarily environmental and conservation groups, that sent recommendations to Capitol Hill outlining specific budget proposals in a document entitled Green Budget 2011—National Funding Priorities for the Environment.  

PAI worked with the World Wildlife Fund to insert a recommendation supporting $1 billion for international family planning and reproductive health programs, including language that connects integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) programs with climate change.  

This is the first time that family planning has made its way into this annual budget document, and builds off our community’s success in having the $1 billion “ask” included in the Transition to Green report from the environmental movement to the Obama transition team in 2008.

In addition to the endorsement of additional FP/RH funding, the section on USAID’s biodiversity conservation programs observes that “growing populations and intensifying economic pressures are increasing the risks to our planet’s natural resources.”

The report is available at  http://www.saveourenvironment.org/greenbudget/2011_green_budget.pdf and the relevant section is excerpted below.

Population Assistance Program
Since 1995, U.S. aid for family planning in the developing world has been cut by nearly 35 percent when adjusted for inflation. The number of women in these countries has grown by 300 million in the same time period. More than 200 million women in the most impoverished parts of the world want to delay or end childbearing but do not have access to modern contraceptives. If the U.S. were to provide its appropriate share of the total financial resources necessary to meet the unmet need for contraception, this sum would total $1 billion. The lack of access to modern family planning is a key driver of the more than 60 million annual unintended pregnancies worldwide and the resulting yearly net increase in global population of 80 million people. Population growth in the developing world remains a contributor to deforestation, desertification, the degradation of oceans and waterways.

Moreover, family planning and reproductive health should be part of larger strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Slower population growth will make reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions easier to achieve, and reduce the scale of human vulnerability to the effects of climate change. Further, USAID’s successful experience in implementing integrated population, health and environment activities (PHE) can be applied to climate change adaptation and offer lessons on how effective community engagement, country-level coordination and cross-sectoral project design can help increase resilience of local communities to climate change. Investment in family planning is critical to the protection of the global environment and comprehensive efforts to address climate change.

FY 11 Recommendation:
Population Assistance Program - $1.0 billion
An increase of $351.5 million over the FY 10 House-passed level of $648.5 million