Family Planning in the Philippines: A Global Wake-Up Call for Policymakers
April 24, 2008
“Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty” – that's the headline of an April 21, 2008 Washington Post article highlighting the plight of a growing number of poor women in the Philippines who lack access to one of the most basic forms of health care: family planning (FP) and reproductive health services. The article, which mentions that the U.S. is scaling down its FP program in the Philippines, should be a wake-up call for policymakers about the global impact of declining FP assistance on the lives of hundreds of millions of men and women in the Philippines and other developing nations.
U.S. investments in international family planning have been one of the most successful and cost-effective ways to improve maternal and child health, ease population pressures on the environment, and help countries fight poverty. But despite the achievements of recent decades -- including an increase in use of contraceptives among married women in the developing world from 10 percent to 60 percent since 1960 and a decline in average fertility rates from about six children per woman to three children per woman -- significant needs remain. For example, only one-third of married Filipino women use modern contraceptives.
Government Censorship: No Joke
April 4, 2008
As a librarian for over 30 years, I've seen my share of April Fools jokes. But this year's seemed more outrageous – and less funny -- than in previous years. A librarian at the University of California/San Francisco Medical Center sent an inquiry to staff at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health when she found discrepancies in POPLINE searches that included the term “abortion.” On April 1, she received the following response from Debbie Dickson at POPLINE: “Yes we did make a change in POPLINE. We recently made all abortion terms stop terms. As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now. In addition to the terms you're already using, you could try using ‘Fertility Control, Postconception.' This is the broader term to our ‘abortion' terms and most records have both in the keyword fields…” In effect, the word “abortion” was downgraded from a medical search term to the status of words such as “a” and “the.”
US FY 2008 Foreign Assistance "Endgame"
December 19, 2007
More than two months after the beginning of the new 2008 fiscal year, the White House and Congress have finally reached agreement on a massive FY 2008 omnibus spending bill.
Let's Talk About Sex
November 30, 2007
Tomorrow, on World AIDS Day, let's talk about sex. 80% of new HIV infections are sexually transmitted; let's stop pretending that sex isn't happening and start making it safer.
A Remedy for PEPFAR's Flaws: Comprehensive HIV Prevention
November 13, 2007
Question: What do you do with a $100 million U.S. government program that isn't working? The answer; you fix it. Abstinence and be-faithful programs for youth in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are not meeting the needs of sexually active and at-risk youth, according to a government-commissioned evaluation that took place in March. Eight months later, no plan has been put into place to address these flaws – endangering the millions of young people these programs are supposed to help protect.
The Global Gag Rule in the Crosshairs
November 5, 2007
Women are dying from preventable causes and the U.S. is contributing to the problem. This was the grave truth repeated at last Wednesday's hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the Global Gag Rule (Mexico City policy)-the first hearing of its kind in the last decade. Women are dying because the U.S. Global Gag Rule is preventing them from getting the reproductive health care and supplies they desperately need to prevent unwanted pregnancies. For the first time since President Bush took office, both houses of Congress have passed legislation to right this wrong.
Keeping Reproductive Health Supplies on an Expanding Agenda
October 30, 2007
Last week, experts from around the globe traveled to Washington to discuss an issue critical to the health of millions around the world--access to reproductive health supplies, notably contraceptives and condoms. At the invitation of USAID, the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC) gathered to strategize how to build support for reproductive health supplies in a time when the development agenda of donors and country governments continues to expand.
A Measure of Survival: Where are Women at Highest Reproductive Risk?
October 22, 2007
Over half a million women worldwide die every year in pregnancy or childbirth – largely from preventable causes. In the developing world, pregnancy remains the leading killer of women in their reproductive years. And for young girls between the age of 15 and 19, their chance of dying in childbirth is twice that of their peers in their 20's. In order for countries and donors to address global priorities like poverty eradication, HIV cessation, and economic growth, strong political will to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women is paramount.
The Damaging Effects of the Global Gag Rule
October 15, 2007
At a heavily attended briefing in Congress last week, renowned experts Dr. Joachim Osur, of the Ipas African Alliance, and Matilda Owusu-Ansah, formally of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), addressed the damaging effects of the Global Gag Rule – highlighting the real, direct, and, more often than not, deadly impact of this policy in their respective countries.
Impact the Shape of Things to Come: Invest in Women and Youth
October 9, 2007
PAI's recent study, The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World, was a hot topic in Washington last week when it drew a panel of experts to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The experts, including a Member of Congress and the heads of the Henry Stimson Center and the Population Reference Bureau, agreed: Demography can often be a powerful indicator for international development.
