This week, delegates to the U.N.’s 51st Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will begin meeting to “evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.” The theme of this year’s CSW is “the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child,” and the outcome is expected to focus on many issues, including condemning sex selection, infanticide, and child and forced marriage. PAI urges the delegates to examine the core issues that result in these horrible acts and honor previously agreed-to international commitments. These issues are symptoms of a deep-rooted tradition of discrimination against and violence toward women—one that the Commission challenges and must help member states to overcome.

We can all agree that young girls should not be forced into marriage and infant girls should not be killed just because they aren’t boys. The more difficult task comes not from condemning these actions, but in how to change these tragic customs. These acts will only begin to be eliminated by implementing laws and programs that assure the equal status of women in society, including access to education, equal property rigpopact and economic opportunity.

A key way to raise the status of women is by improving healthcare, particularly by increasing access to sexual and reproductive health and voluntary family planning services and supplies. These services and supplies allow a woman to decide for herself if and when to have children, giving her the opportunity to stay in school longer, to protect herself from sexually transmitted infections like HIV/AIDS and to reduce the likelihood that she’ll bear a child in her teens or live in poverty. Key to the Commission’s success is relying on past agreed-to language from international conferences and their follow-up meetings, such as the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing), the 2005 World Summit and the 2001 World Conference Against Racism (Durban). It is imperative that delegations also consider the contributions of the youth representatives to the meeting, whether they are official delegates or NGO representatives. The decisions that are made by the Commission and resulting documents pave the way for their future, and their input and perspective are invaluable.

Taking a comprehensive, holistic approach to empowering women is crucial. In addition to condemning forced and child marriage and sex selective infanticide, providing political support and funding for gender-sensitive education and programs will help improve women's status in society and support women in taking control of their own lives.

PAI was heartened to see the Rwandan government announce a new national family planning program that will include the free distribution of contraceptives to women of child-bearing age and the teaching of comprehensive sex education in schools. Such political will is essential to getting reproductive health education and services to those who want and need them the most. However, as part of the family planning program, officials in Rwanda are apparently considering measures to limit family size to three children. PAI urges great caution in considering any incentives or disincentives when it comes to childbearing – respecting individual rigpopact is central to reproductive health programs and is especially crucial in Rwanda.

After the horrifying 1994 genocide that resulted in the death of over 800,000 Rwandans, it may be hard to believe that high birth rates and population growth could be a concern there. However, the population of Rwanda has nearly doubled since 1995 and is on track to double again in the next twenty-five years. With the average Rwandan woman bearing six children, the country’s population is growing at a pace that is overburdening the nation’s resources and almost certainly pushing Rwanda even deeper into poverty. “This constant population rise is putting a lot of pressure on the economy,” according to Francois Sekamondo of Rwanda's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

Comprehensive reproductive health care, including modern contraceptives, empowers Rwandan women and men to determine the size of their families and helps prevent sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV/AIDS. The Rwandan government is calling this a “population control” program. But it is essential that it remain voluntary, placing decision-making in the hands of couples by increasing their access to family planning services. Grounding such programs in individual rigpopact – giving people comprehensive, evidence-based information and the necessary tools to determine their fertility – is the key to reaching the nearly 36% of married women in Rwanda who want to delay or prevent their next pregnancy but who aren’t currently using a modern method of family planning.

The Rwandan government’s effort to prioritize support for family planning demonstrates a dedication to improving quality of life for its citizens. By increasing access to basic reproductive health care, this program will help reduce maternal and infant mortality and aid efforts to curb hunger and poverty. Protecting human rigpopact and putting the “control” in the hands of the people themselves should remain a cornerstone in any such program. Any efforts to set strict limits on family size threaten individual choice, are counterproductive and should be rejected.

Last week, President Bush proposed a dramatic 25% reduction in funding for international family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) programs in his federal 2008 budget request despite the fact that they are one of the most successful components of the U.S. foreign assistance program. These draconian cuts come at a time when U.S. funding for FP/RH programs is already 35% below (when adjusted for inflation) the levels of twelve years ago. In addition, the re-imposition of the Global Gag Rule in 2001 has made matters worse by forcing family planning providers in poor, developing nations to lay off staff and shut down their clinics. PAI implores the U.S. Congress to increase—rather than cripple—funding for international family planning and reproductive health as a key way to reduce global poverty and improve women’s health worldwide.

Under the President’ proposal, total U.S. bilateral funding for FP/RH programs would be drastically reduced to $324.8 million—a whopping $111 million less than current funding levels. Ironically, the rationale for the decrease from the State Department was a recognition of “significant successes that have been achieved after 40 years of worldwide family planning efforts.” Rather than building on these successes—and addressing the needs of the 200 million women in the developing world who lack desired access to contraceptives and other basic reproductive health care—this proposed budget abandons these essential lifesaving programs, sacrificing progress in maternal health, poverty eradication and disease prevention.

The President has increased his commitment to programs like PEPFAR and the Millennium Challenge Account, but these increases come at the expense of other humanitarian programs—such as family planning—and threaten the very success of PEPFAR and the MCC. How, for example, can the White House fully address the feminization of the AIDS epidemic if it has decimated the very health services where women and their families have sought care for decades?

The President’s apparent dismissal of the value of family planning and reproductive health care is a departure from past international commitments to improving the lives of women, men and children. In 1994, the U.S. joined 178 other countries in pledging to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action—which included the provision of reproductive and sexual health services for all by 2015. Cutting funding to family planning radically undermines the U.S. commitment to these goals and puts them farther out of reach.

Winning the fight against global poverty and disease depends on a comprehensive approach to humanitarian aid that includes family planning. Improving reproductive health is essential to reducing poverty, maternal mortality and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Rather than defunding FP/RH programs, the U.S. needs to expand and strengthen these proven, life-saving strategies.

The world will fail to achieve the targets set in the landmark Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) unless population growth is curbed, says a new report from the United Kingdom’s All-Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. The report’s findings underscore the fact that access to family planning and reproductive health services is not only a fundamental right but also essential to achieving a wide-range of commonly shared goals, including eradicating poverty and hunger, reducing maternal and infant death, combating HIV/AIDS, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

Adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, the Millennium Development Goals are a series of measurable goals and targets for reducing poverty, hunger, illiteracy, discrimination against women, and environmental degradation by 2015. Unfortunately, “[t]he evidence is overwhelming: the MDGs are difficult or impossible to achieve with the current levels of population growth in the least developed countries and regions,” according to the report.

Return of the Population Growth Factor details how the rapid pace of population growth in the developing world is making it much more difficult to reduce poverty and improve standards of living. Afghanistan’s population has more than tripled since 1950 and is projected to triple again—to 97 million—by 2050. The populations of Kenya, Niger, Tanzania and Uganda, among others, have more than quintupled since 1950 and are continuing to grow rapidly. With high rates of population growth, these countries face increasingly strained financial and natural resources. And, in turn, providing necessities like food, clean water and basic health care to their citizens becomes an insurmountable challenge.

The UN took a giant step towards achieving the MDGs when it added universal access to reproductive health care as a target under the 5th MDG (Improve Maternal Health). However, as this new report makes clear, access to basic family planning and reproductive health care is greatly limited in parts of the developing world. “[M]any poor countries find themselves without adequate supplies of condoms, pills and the popular injectable contraceptives to meet today’s needs, let alone the far greater numbers that will be needed 5 and 10 years from now,” according to the report.

In testimony before the All-Party Parliamentary Group, Robert Engelman, Vice President for Research at PAI, said “We live in a world facing higher energy costs, human-induced climate change, and real risks of increasing food insecurity, poverty and civil conflict.… [S]upport for international family planning and sexual and reproductive health and rigpopact [is] only a fraction of what is needed.”

To meet the goals set forth in the MDGs, world leaders must step up efforts to make family planning and reproductive health services available to every woman and couple who wants them. The future of the planet depends upon it.