Population Action Blog

PAI celebrates International Youth Day

2010-08-12T21:50:14Z

Moses Mpali-Taire lives in a society where you don't talk about sex.

Yet during the past year, he and other members of the Teenage Education Health Centre Uganda have been busy training other young people to lead sexual and reproductive health clubs in their communities.

]]> To Moses, the clubs are a way to get young advocates talking about the sexual and reproductive health issues that affect their lives, and to encourage others to do the same.

"What is phenomenal about this project is that young people are now prepared to be the champions of their sexual reproductive health needs," he says.

Now, more than ever, young people are in need of comprehensive family planning and reproductive health services. In 2008, the world's population reached a high of 6.8 billion people - over one-half under the age of 30. Most of them live in the developing world where access to such services is very low.

Today, as PAI celebrates International Youth Day, we salute Moses and other young people around the world who are taking action to ensure to access family planning and reproductive health services.

PAI engages youth as creative and strategic partners through the umbrella of its Young People's Initiative (YPI). Over the past year, the initiative was hard at work to empower young people to advocate for their own sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) both in the US and abroad.

Domestically, PAI educates young people in the U.S. about the reproductive health needs of their peers in the developing world. Over the past year, the YPI went to college campuses in Atlanta, Georgia and Charlottesville, Virginia with from Youth Vision Zambia to discuss the challenges that youth in developing countries have in accessing sexual and reproductive health services. As a result of PAI's visit, students in Atlanta were inspired to reach out to Rep. John Lewis D-GA and ask him to sign onto the letter to the Office for Budget Management requesting $1 billion dollars for international family planning programs.

Internationally, the YPI seeks to improve the young people's SRHR, foster women`s empowerment and gender equality, promote an integration of SRHR in combating HIV/ AIDS, reduce adolescent maternal mortality and promote environmental sustainability. In 2009, we launched the first youth small grants fund and supported three youth-led organizations' efforts to run their own advocacy campaigns for youth SRHR. In addition to the Teenage Education Health Centre Uganda, YPI's grants supported TAMASHA Tanzania, an organization working to include youth in the policymaking process; and Youth Action Movement Rwanda, and affiliate of the Family Planning Association of Rwanda.

These grants are often the only unrestricted source of support for the advocacy work of an organization, thus enabling grantees to establish permanent policy and advocacy programs with seed support from PAI.

Winston Churchill Shauri, TAMASHA, highlighting the importance of men's involvement in programs addressing SRHR during a screening of Empty Handed hosted by the office of Hon. Sylvia Ssinabulya, MP Mityana.

Winston Churchill Shauri, co-founder of TAMASHA Tanzania, says that due to funding from the YPI, "TAMASHA was able to interact and raise the youth SRHR agenda with key community leaders at local government authorities" and reach 150 young people in Kinodoni Municipal, a ward of Dar-el-Salaam.

Chantal Umuhoza, an advocate with Youth Action Movement in Rwanda, is leading a project assessing the SRHR needs and challenges of young people in more than 3 Rwandan districts. YAM wants to present the findings and policy recommendations to district policymakers and monitor their commitments.

Chantal Umuhoza - YAM Rwanda, Winston Churchill - TAMASHA Tanzania and Moses Mpaali - THEC Uganda participate in a screening of PAI documentary Empty Handed in Kampala, Uganda

The YPI applauds the United Nations' 2009 decision to proclaim the year to come the International Year of Youth, and will continue working with these domestic and international partners to advance the sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people.

Why is the Kenyan constitution so important to right-wing America?

2010-08-04T21:45:15Z

A few weeks ago, I opened my inbox to find threats of damnation and dire consequences. It was one of those emails, making the rounds in Kenya these days, filled with warnings about abortion, moral decay and a Muslim takeover that would surely result if Kenyans approve a new constitution for our country.

For several decades, Kenyans have been involved in the search for a new constitution. After a long and uncertain process, a draft constitution was finalized in May 2010 and a referendum on the same was held today. Several surveys and opinion polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of Kenyans, more than 60 percent, approve of the new constitution.

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The push for a new constitution has been driven by a strong desire to end bad governance and impunity, promote the rule of law, prevent theft of national resources, deal with gross inequities and serious violations of human rights, and promote the pursuit of a life of dignity for all Kenyans. So when did all this change? When did abortion become the main focus of the debate on the Kenyan constitution and when did Kenya become a battle ground for conservative American groups and politicians?

First of all, let's get one thing straight: the draft constitution does not permit abortion, except when the mother's health is at risk. Article 26 (4) says, "Abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law"

This is not much different than Kenya's current law, which allows for abortion when a doctor thinks it is necessary to save the life of the mother. Opponents say that the new wording opens the door for legalisation of abortion in the future, even though no other legislation can be made that overturns or contradicts the constitution. This argument is pushed mainly by evangelical Kenyan churches, with strong support from American conservatives.

They talk about protecting the "faith values" of the people and the moral and ethical integrity of the African woman. I wonder which African woman they are referring to. Is it the one ravaged by war and rape in the Congo and other conflict areas, or the one weighed down by repressive cultural traditions that violate human rights? Is it the woman dying from preventable pregnancy complications? Or could we be talking about the one who is discriminated against and dispossessed by national laws that deny her a life of dignity and treat her like a second class citizen in her own country?

For several years, our democracy has matured -- opening up space for discourse on social and political issues, and leading to greater participation of citizens in the policy-making process. However on matters of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), even the limited space that existed has been shrinking.

Rational discourse on SRHR has been drowned out by the loud voices of well-organised conservative groups that seem to have gained ground in Kenya during the Bush years. SRHR is trivialized and seen from a moral, ethical and lately religious lens through which every discussion starts and ends with abortion.

For example, three U.S. lawmakers - Rep. Chris Smith (R) of New Jersey, Rep. Darrell Issa (R) of California, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) of Florida -- sent a letter to the State Department questioning U.S. support of the constitution process in Kenya.

Several conservative Christian groups have also joined the fray. The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson, has spent "tens of thousands of dollars" funding the Reds (No) campaign to reject the proposed constitution, according to Jay Sekulow, the Centre's chief counsel. The group is opposed to the clause that allows termination of pregnancy if the mother's life is in danger.

Every year thousands upon thousands of African women die from pregnancy-related complications - a death toll higher than that from all the major conflicts in Africa combined. The sheer magnitude of these deaths is heartrending, yet I have never heard these groups talk about this or support proven solutions to save women's lives, like access to contraception, skilled birth attendants, and emergency obstetric care. As this debate rages, I ask why the same zeal has not been applied to saving the lives of these women, or why right-wing America is so silent about sexual violence, female genital cutting and other practices that confine African and Kenyan women to a life of misery and indignity.

As a Kenyan woman and a committed Christian, I have been at a loss in trying to understand why anyone would oppose a new constitution that would provide Kenya with a framework to fight corruption, ensure the establishment of a more equitable distribution of resources and promote respect for human rights. Why in God's name would an American congressman be opposed to strengthening basic social services for the citizens of Kenya? A Kenyan constitution with a robust Bill of Rights that promotes the pursuit of a life of dignity and equality is good for Kenya and good for America.

I have come to the conclusion that the Americans opposing this constitution are very selective in their defense of the sanctity of life. Their agenda clearly has nothing to do with Kenyan women, our rights, or our lives. Take your battle somewhere else, because Kenya will get a new constitution this week.

Kids, Condoms, Controversy

2010-07-19T16:53:53Z

Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide.

Cross-posted with OtherWords.

A few weeks ago, a tiny resort community on the tip of Cape Cod found itself at the center of a national firestorm. Media descended in droves. People called the town "absurd" and "disgusting." Even the governor of Massachusetts got involved.

]]> The reason for all the outrage? The Provincetown School Committee announced a policy allowing school nurses to give condoms to any student that requested them.

Since the policy included no cutoff for age, parents across the nation panicked, assuming that they would start passing out condoms to seven-year-olds like free candy. Within days, the superintendent apologized and the district changed the policy, clarifying that condoms would only be provided in "specific circumstances" to "age-appropriate" requests.

In some ways, the response is not surprising: Many parents just don't want to think about their kids and sex. Not in the same sentence, and not in a school policy. Yet lost in the controversy was the fact that young people--both here and around the world--need more information about and better access to family planning, not less.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of American teens have had sex at least once. America boasts the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, and there are about 435,000 births to teen moms every year.

That's only a fraction of the 13 million children born to teens each year across the world. Ninety percent of these births occur in the developing world, where sexual violence, forced marriages, and dangerous pregnancies are commonplace for too many teen and even pre-teen girls.

While child marriage has decreased globally, it remains common in rural and low-income areas in parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In Ethiopia and some parts of West Africa, girls can be married as young as seven or eight. In Kebbi State, Northern Nigeria, the average age of marriage for girls is just over 11 years old. In Bangladesh, 45 percent of young women marry by age 15.

For these girls, having sex and bearing children almost always comes before they are physically or emotionally ready. They have little access to reproductive health information, and are often powerless to abstain from sex or even use contraception.

So children deliver children, often with tragic results. Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than women over the age of 20. Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide.

Young girls are also more physically susceptible to sexually transmitted infections, resulting in escalating rates of HIV and other diseases among women in the developing world.

These girls are in dire need of education--including information about sex, and how to access and use contraceptives. But in societies where most parents consider discussion about sex a taboo, they're not getting it. In fact, in Uganda, where one in four girls has a teen pregnancy, a debate eerily similar to Provincetown's is taking place. Concerns about age-appropriateness have limited sex education in primary schools, even though many kids in Uganda begin school later in life and these schools commonly have students as old as 17.

Henry Ntale, who runs a teen health center in Uganda, summed up the stakes in an interview with Inter Press Service: "Young people are too young to know, but again, they are too young to die. You rather let them know than let them die."

Looking at it this way, the kids in Provincetown are lucky to have the school nurse to talk to, reliable information about sex and birth control, and condoms available should they need them.

If only something so outrageous were available to all.

Danielle Zielinski is a communications specialist at Population Action International. www.populationaction.org

Adding "Forced" Bachelors to "Missing" Girls: The Gendered Outcomes of China's Population Policy

2010-06-30T16:43:20Z

I recently attended a 30th anniversary celebration in Beijing for the China Population and Development Research Center, which hosted an international seminar on demographic research. Those were the same 30 years that China has restricted its citizens to having what now amounts to around 1.5 children. While the label "one-child policy," has always been a misnomer since there are exceptions, including for couples in some areas whose first child is a daughter, there is no mistaking that China has had a stringent fertility policy. With a three decade perspective, we can now see what has unfolded in people's lives as a result of the policy. After it was announced in 1979, the policy was questioned for a range of reasons. In addition to the human rights issues inherent in the policy, demographers and sociologists also highlighted the potential social and gender implications of sharply constraining fertility.

]]> What has been the result of preference for boys when couples are allowed only one child? Even in 1982, when I lived in China as a graduate student studying China's family planning policy and program, it was clear that if people could only have one or, under certain circumstances, two or more children, many had a preference for sons. This cartoon appeared in a Chinese newspaper in 1983 and was reprinted in an article I wrote for American Demographics in 1984 titled, "Implications of China's One Child Policy."

Much has been written over the years about gender discrimination faced by females that has been exacerbated by the population policy. The outcome has been a strongly skewed sex ratio at birth, which is now the highest in the world favoring boys. For every 100 girls born, 120 boys are born (a normal sex ratio at birth is around 106 boys: 100 girls). Boys are often called China's little emperors.

Less has been written about the negative effects of the population policy for men, but, it is critical to start addressing the effects of the policy on women AND men. China can learn from the gender relational perspective, which represents current global gender discourse, and is articulated in Margaret Greene and Andrew Levack's upcoming IGWG paper, "Synchronizing Gender Strategies: A Cooperative Model for Gender Transformation,"

Ironically, the ultrasound machines throughout China that were put in place to ensure that compulsory IUDs stayed in place, were the same machines that told parents the sex of their fetus. Professor Dudley Poston and colleagues have been writing about this for a number of years. At the demography seminar in Beijing, Professor Poston presented his most recent calculation: between 1983 and 2010 more than 40 million boys were born who will not be able to get married. That number is more than the total population of California, or half the population of Germany. If the sex ratio at birth does not become more balanced, this number will grow. These men have been labeled "forced bachelors," and studies are being undertaken about how to "manage" the growing undesirable bachelor subculture, including from a public safety perspective. Until now, the one-child policy has been assessed by the damage to women's physical and psychological health, bride stealing and rising HIV rates and crime. But equally important is the physical and psychological lives of men.

Officially, China has adhered to the proverb that "Women Hold up Half the Sky" and has enacted gender equity laws. Family planning posters have long shown pictures of parents with a daughter and a current Caring for Girls campaign is underway to combat traditional Chinese culture, blamed for the discrimination against girls. None of these attempts has worked to budge the sex ratio. Analysis shows that the sex ratio is more equal in areas with looser fertility restrictions. However, the policy to allow a second birth if the first is a daughter has resulted in very skewed sex ratios for those second births in favor of sons. It is time to acknowledge that China's fertility policy has had unfortunate social consequences for BOTH women and men. In addition to easing the fertility policy, which a group of prominent Chinese demographers is calling for, it is time to limit the use of ultrasound machines and change the gender discourse in China. The Caring for Girls campaign should shift to a campaign to Care for Girls and Boys Equally. A new proverb should be coined: "Women and Men Hold Up the Sky Together."

The new U.N. climate chief should have a strong understanding of women's issues

2010-04-27T22:02:56Z

Originally published on Grist

by Suzanne Ehlers , Negash Teklu, Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando,Wasim Zaman

We have a critical opportunity right now to make sure the next U.N. climate chief will serve the needs of the global community of women, and we need to seize it.

With Yvo de Boer stepping down as executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be appointing a replacement. The role of the executive secretary is critical to achieving a fair, ambitious, and binding climate agreement, and a strong successor to de Boer is absolutely essential for Cancun and beyond.

]]> What will make for a strong UNFCCC executive secretary? The Climate Action Network has issued a letter articulating important qualifications, which include political leadership, experience with negotiations, commitment to civil society, and a thorough understanding of the challenges of development in the Global South.

As leaders of organizations working at the forefront of environmental and women's issues in the Global South, we'd like to add another qualification to that list: an understanding of the full range of gender issues, including access to reproductive health and family planning.

Women make up half of the world's population and 70 percent of the world's poor, produce up to 80 percent of agricultural products in places like sub-Saharan Africa, and stand to face the brunt of climate change.

Three female candidates are rumored to be under consideration: Maria Fernanda Espinoza from Ecuador, Elizabeth Thompson from Barbados, and Christiana Figueres from Costa Rica. These women occupy distinct and noteworthy positions within the larger environmental and climate diplomatic circles. Espinoza has held the post of minister for foreign affairs, and is the current Ecuadorian representative to the U.N. Thompson has a well-known reputation for excellence in diplomacy, having led the Barbados governmental delegation to Kyoto. Figueres is a formidable negotiator on climate change and an expert on carbon markets.

Certainly we all know from the U.S. experience with Sarah Palin that being a woman does not a feminist make. On the other hand, ensuring gender balance, tracking the number of female elected officials, and actively engaging women at all levels of policy making are all standard and well-accepted means of measuring an institution's ability to bring a balanced perspective to its deliberations. Do we wish we lived in world free of such measures and quotas? Perhaps, but the reality is that marginalized perspectives tend to be, well, just that-marginalized-so our advocacy on this front is not yet finished business.

With the UNFCCC soon to enter its third decade, it is long overdue for Ban Ki-moon to live up to his own challenge to world governments to give a "greater say to women in addressing the climate challenge." In selecting a leader who will be capable of crafting an effective and fair international agreement, the secretary-general must seek a candidate with a track record demonstrating a nuanced understanding of the gendered aspects of climate change challenges and solutions. It is time that the U.N. pay more than lip service to the notion that women are the agents of change.

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Suzanne Ehlers is the interim president of Population Action International.

Negash Teklu is executive director of Ethiopia's Consortium for Integration of Population, Health, and Environment.

Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando is the director of the Centre for the Study of Adolescence in Kenya.

Wasim Zaman is the executive director of International Council on Management of Population Programme, Selangor, Malaysia.

Whoa Canada

2010-03-19T19:49:19Z

Originally published on the Huffington Post.

Canada did its best this week to act like George W. Bush. The government excluded family planning from a new maternal health initiative for developing countries it planned to launch at the G8 meeting in June. Like a minority in our country, their Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon claimed that access to contraception is irrelevant to his goal of saving mothers and infants. After a quick public backlash, he edited his talking points, but still refused to acknowledge that family planning saves lives.

]]> More than 500,000 women die of pregnancy related causes each year, the majority of whom are from the poorest regions of the world and leave behind children vulnerable to poverty, disease, and early death. Family planning not only saves women's lives, but improves the lives of future generations.

In developing countries across the world, 215 million women need contraception but don't have access. Including family planning in maternal health projects would prevent women dying in childbirth and reduce debilitating complications. Increased access to safe and effective contraception would actually decrease abortions as it already has in countless countries spanning the globe, from Bangladesh to Romania. Family planning also reduces the transmission of mother-to-child HIV and keeps girls in schools for longer. If Canada's objective is to improve maternal and child survival, an investment in family planning is not only relevant but imperative.

It may be hard for policymakers to appreciate the importance of family planning when three quarters of Canadian women use contraception, and the chance of dying in childbirth is among the lowest in the world. But the proposal is not for Canada--it will impact women in developing countries like Sierra Leone, where 1 in 8 die in childbirth. Canada's plan needs to help the young pregnant woman with five children, who does not have a choice to put off another pregnancy and has barely recovered from the prior one. It needs to make sure that she is strong enough to take care of herself and to make a deliberate decision that she can provide for more children before she gets pregnant again.

Under the last three Republican Presidents, the United States implemented the Global Gag Rule, which shuttered health clinics across Africa denying women's access to safe health care services and a proven method for preventing maternal mortality. Canada should not have even hinted at parroting this stale policy at the G8.

The G8's previous Communiqués have long recognized the importance of contraceptives and family planning to achieving maternal and child health goals, as has President Obama's new Global Health Initiative. The U.S. now needs to export its women-centered policies as strongly as Bush exported its harmful ideology.

Suzanne Ehlers is Interim President of Population Action International in Washington D.C.

The U.N. Men's Club

2010-03-11T17:18:36Z

By Suzanne Ehlers and Elizabeth Becker

Originally published on Grist.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced an important new climate change financing group last week, but out of the 19 people named, no women were included. This is unfortunate because women will bear the brunt of the effects of climate change and are key to any climate solutions.

]]> The group is tasked with investigating potential sources of revenue to support developing countries in their efforts to cope with the impacts of climate change and the shift to low-carbon development pathways. The Copenhagen negotiations in December called for $30 billion in climate financing for 2010 to 2012, ramping up to $100 billion annually by 2020.

The secretary-general's choices for the advisory group will bring intellectual energy and political gravitas. The group is chaired by U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. It includes two additional heads of state, ministers of finance, and leaders of central banks. Taking part are financier and philanthropist George Soros and economist Sir Nicholas Stern. It includes equal representation between industrialized countries and developing countries (though only two smaller, highly vulnerable developing countries). But what it does not include at all is women.

Leaving women out is unfortunate and reflects a persistent bias in climate change decision-making roles. It is also unwise given the ultimate objective of the advisory group. This elite club will frame and shape climate change financial flows to the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. We know that women are disproportionately represented among both of these groups and are often on the front lines of climate change. In developing countries, because of their role as primary providers of food, water, and fuel for their families, women are both the most affected by climate change and a pivotal force for building responses to direct climate impacts. We also know that women are frequently the decision-makers about household consumption, and represent an increasing share of wealth around the world.

By leaving their voices out of the critical tasks before this advisory group, the secretary-general is closing out opportunities to explore the widest possible range of creative and innovative sources of revenue on the scale that is needed to address climate change.

The secretary-general himself has noted the need to include women in all aspects of decision-making on climate change. In a speech last September, he called on member states "to foster an environment where women are key decision makers on climate change, and play an equally central role in carrying out these decisions...We must do more to give greater say to women in addressing the climate challenge." So why have they been ignored yet again?

The secretary-general and the co-chairs of the advisory group can correct this by expanding the membership of the group to include meaningful representation of female officials before the group's first meeting in London at the end of the month.

It is impossible to believe that the secretary-general couldn't find any women with expertise to participate. On today, International Women's Day, we hope the secretary-general reconsiders the membership of this important group.

Motherhood, It's Complicated

2010-02-18T21:59:33Z

Originally posted on the Huffington Post

A colleague on maternity leave recently sent an e-mail saying what an incredible experience pregnancy is and how she can't help thinking of the millions of women who go through it without the support we take for granted in the U.S. "Here I am focusing on tummy time and music groups; talk about perspective when you consider that more than half a million women die every year during pregnancy and childbirth because they don't have access to the simplest of health services and supplies." ]]> For ten years Population Action International (PAI) has been at the forefront of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, a global partnership working to ensure that all people in low- and middle-income countries can access and use affordable, high-quality supplies to meet their reproductive health needs. And while PAI has long recognized the role of family planning in improving maternal health, a specific focus on maternal health supplies emerged in 2009, when PAI partnered with the Maternal Health Task Force. The Task Force asked us to explore who was taking up the issue of maternal health supplies and if PAI could share lessons learned from our reproductive health supplies experience.

Our maternal health research is currently underway, starting with two country case studies in Bangladesh and Uganda. What we have already learned is humbling:

Unlike family planning, there is very little direct donor funding for maternal health supplies. The shift to broader health sector and direct budget support, as well as financing from national governments' own resources, means maternal health issues can fall prey to other priorities in a budget process.
Women and their families are often expected to pay out of pocket for essential maternal health medicines, such as oxytocin for post-partum hemorrhage, even when government facilities are supposed to provide free health care. This adds another obstacle for poor women in efforts to ensure safe delivery.
No coordinated system exists for maternal health supplies in many countries and they are often not integrated into supply systems for other drugs, such as for family planning or newborn and child health.
Furthermore, human resource issues--having staff positions filled, ensuring providers are trained, and particularly being able to improve maternal health at the community level for the women who deliver at home--are a tremendous challenge. Ensuring sufficient access to supplies alone is not enough when a health system is broken.

It is no wonder that Millennium Development Goal 5--improving maternal health--is the most off track of all the millennium development goals.

These early findings remind me of the truth of my colleague's e-mail--how much we take for granted. I am expecting my second child in June and it is not lost on me that access to family planning services and supplies has allowed me to delay childbearing until desired, and afforded our family the chance for proper birth spacing. It's more than the miracle of the pill. It's the fact that I can find the pill, afford it, and switch between brands to find one that suits me best. These facts form part of my daily motivation to mentally and emotionally connect to the real lives of the women and families. Over the long term, we at PAI are looking to achieve the Millennium Development Goal on maternal health, and adequate supplies are critical for this to happen.

Click here to support PAI's work on maternal health supplies.

Amid Blizzards, Protests, and Lock-downs, Population Gets Stunning Moments in the Sun in Copenhagen

2009-12-17T23:19:49Z

Originally published on the New Security Beat

The second week of negotiations here in Copenhagen has been marked by dramatic events, as the deadline for a new global agreement to address climate change approaches.

Blocs of negotiators from developing countries have walked out, and returned. Thousands of NGO representatives who have been denied access to the proceedings are shivering in the cold. Observers inside the Bella Center have staged sit-ins. And yet slivers of hope remain for some form of a global deal that is fair, ambitious, and binding as negotiators prepare for the arrival of more than 100 heads of state on Friday.
]]> Amid this chaos, there is encouraging evidence that voices of those advocating for increased attention to the role of population and reproductive health and rights in climate change responses are being heard.

This afternoon, in a side event organized by Iceland on "Women as Agents of Change," Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Tørnæs announced new funding for the United Nations Population Fund in the amount of $5.9 million, stating:

"The combination of climate change and high population growth adds to the pressure on resources in many developing countries. Population growth puts tremendous pressure on a sustainable management of natural resources, which indicates an indirect link between climate change and women's sexual and reproductive health and rights...More than 200 million women in developing countries want to avoid pregnancy, but do not have access to modern contraception. It is crucial that we accelerate our efforts to meet these unmet needs."

At a closed-door meeting yesterday, more than 50 members of parliament (MPs) from developed and developing countries discussed the role of voluntary family planning programs in reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Hosted by the Population and Climate Change Alliance, a collective including Population Action International (PAI) and other NGOs working together to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights as critical components of climate change responses, the event encouraged informal, frank discussions among MPs about the opportunities to bring population into the Copenhagen conference.

Earlier in the week, the issue of reproductive health got a worthy boost during a high-level panel marking the close of "Development and Climate Days," a parallel conference outside the negotiating venue. President Nasheed of Maldives, Tanzania's Minister for Environment Batilda Burian, and Kenya's Minister for Water and Irrigation Charity Kaluki Ngilu, and other panelists identified what the most vulnerable countries need out of Copenhagen to help them adapt to climate change. Minister Ngilu unequivocally stated that reproductive health should be central to development and climate change efforts in these countries. In Kenya, where the population has grown rapidly, she asserted that reproductive health should be a key strategy to help cope with development challenges, including climate change, by ensuring that "women are empowered and have control of their health needs, including desired family sizes."

Nobel Laureate and chairman of the IPCC Rajendra Kumar Pachauri also recognized the importance of reproductive health. At a United Nations Foundation event on UNFPA's State of the World report, "Facing a changing world: women, population and climate," Pachauri and Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, noted that issues of gender and population are back on the global agenda. Robinson pointed out that the report's focus on women's lives will be an important stepping stone in 2010.

Pachauri remarked that issues of population and consumption are "critical to actions related to global greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation" and that the intersection of these issues affects both industrialized and developing countries. Unfair distribution and aggregate levels of consumption leave the world's poor vulnerable, he said, and resources for health care, education, and social services should be mobilized to address inequities and fertility.

Looking forward, Pachauri called on countries to examine issues of population and consumption, provided that industrialized leaders demonstrate the necessary global leadership at COP-15 and other forums.

While the outcome from these two weeks of negotiations remains foggy, it has become eminently clear that issues of population, reproductive health, family planning, and gender equity have gained a strong foothold in discussions on the global response to climate change. Despite the hours we have spent shivering in the cold, our voices are resonating in the halls of the Bella Center, and will continue to call for comprehensive solutions in Copenhagen and beyond.

Kathleen Mogelgaard is senior program manager for population and climate change at Population Action International (PAI). Read more about PAI's work around Copenhagen.

Let the Human Face of Climate Change Emerge in Copenhagen

2009-12-14T20:48:38Z

As the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) convenes in Copenhagen for its 15th meeting, all eyes are on targets to reduce carbon emissions. At the same time, the irony of climate change is that people in countries that have had the least to do with growing emissions are likely to experience the greatest difficulties in adapting to the impacts of climate change. Discussions and agreements in Copenhagen will include how best to plan for and fund long term adaptation strategies for countries affected by changes in climate.

]]> Experience with short term adaptation plans, embodied in National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) developed over the past decade, offers lessons to the negotiators and shows that the world needs a new paradigm for addressing adaptation and development that puts people at the core. Under a 2001 agreement at the 7th meeting of the COP of the UNFCCC, forty-nine least developed countries and small island states have been eligible to develop NAPAs, which are meant to address immediate and pressing adaptation issues. Nearly a decade later, most NAPAs have been prepared, but few projects have started. Funding for NAPAs by the international community is woefully inadequate. Furthermore, the projects do not reflect the complexity of people's lives, nor the need to address human and social capital to help make people more resilient to changes in their environments that are resulting from climate change. The NAPA process was designed to be participatory, yet the inclusion of women in the process, let alone young people, was lacking in most countries. The social sectors were underrepresented to say the least. The NAPA process in most countries was squarely housed in ministries of meteorology and environment, with predictable outcomes.

NAPAs mostly propose single sector projects that are in 12 categories given by the UNFCCC. Half of the projects fall into three sectors - food security, terrestrial ecosystems and water resources. Those sectors are clearly critical, but so are social sectors, including health and education to promote human capital and community participation to promote social capital. The only social sector under the UNFCCC architecture is health and that is among the least well represented sectors. Only 7 percent of projects proposed through NAPAs are in the health sector. Education, particularly girl's education, which is widely understood to improve people's lives, is not a sector under the UNFCCC. Thirty-seven of 41 prepared NAPAs note population pressure as exacerbating the effects of climate change, yet there are no projects underway to promote family planning, let along women's rights and empowerment or education which could help bolster resilience and ameliorate population pressure and safeguard the most vulnerable from the adverse impacts of climate change.

NAPAs should be linked with relevant national strategies- a process that requires the collaboration and input of a wide range of policy stakeholders. Unfortunately, in most countries, a lack of effective coordination between ministries has meant that the majority of NAPAs were developed without linking to broader national priorities. Only a quarter of NAPAs, for example, link to national development strategies. Improving coordination around adaptation at the national and global levels to ensure a set of policies that comprehensively address the needs and rights of the most vulnerable individuals, remains a pressing issue.

As the world meets to decide how to move forward on climate change, getting adaptation planning and funding right is critical. We must examine the global and national architecture to make sure that considerations to improve people's lives form the basis for any plans, short or long-term, to address the complexity of adaptation. Development and adaptation priorities, including links with reaching the Millennium Development Goals, need to be more closely linked in policies and programs. This includes community-based, participatory approaches to providing education, expanding livelihoods, improving health, giving couples the means to have the number of children they want to have, and empowering women. It also means providing developing countries with adequate, predictable funds that are additive to already existing development dollars to promote this coordination. Those are proven development strategies that, in the long run, will help people cope with what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called the greatest challenge facing humanity.

Climate Change, Family Planning and Reproductive Health

2009-12-09T20:40:01Z

As countries negotiate climate change solutions in Copenhagen, family planning and reproductive health should be among the adaption strategies on the table. At the same time, the world should not shy away from addressing population as a factor related to carbon emissions. Over 200 million women around the world are having more children than they say they want to have, partly because they do not have access to contraception. Giving women the means to have the number of children they prefer will help them and their families prosper, which is good for women, for the environment and for climate change.

]]> country case study that details these effects on the ground in Ethiopia.

Women suffer the most from the effects of climate change - and women are also the best agents of change. With food shortages, they have to find ways to feed their families. As water becomes scarcer, women have to travel longer distances to find it. Faced with their own health issues, including the possibility of unintended pregnancy women have to care for their children, who are highly susceptible to illnesses related to rising temperatures. Most importantly, women express the need for family planning. In the Ethiopia study, one young woman from the Southern Region said, "... if a family has limited children, it will have enough land for its kids and hence we can protect the forests." A new UNFPA report, Women, Population and Climate Change shows that women are the earth's best stewards and they should be more involved in finding solutions to climate change in their families, communities, nations and in global fora.

Rapid population growth rates are inhibiting countries from building resilience through strengthening human capital - through education, health, and providing livelihoods. 37 of the existing 41 National Adaptation Programmes of Action prepared by least developed countries identify population pressure as a factor exacerbating the effects of climate change. The contribution of rights-based, voluntary family planning and reproductive health is clear, yet none of the 41 countries includes a funded project that includes family planning. That is a huge missed opportunity to improve the lives of women, families and communities and to build resilience to climate change.

Investments in voluntary family planning and girl's education have also been shown to be cost effective ways to reduce carbon emissions - in addition to being critical for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Recent analysis by the Futures Group shows that for every dollar invested in family planning, there would be a return of between $2 and $7 related to five MDGs (education, child survival, maternal health, malaria and water/sanitation).

Whether the world's population reaches the United Nation Population Division's "low variant projection" of 8.0 billion in 2050 rather than the high estimate of 10.5 billion will make a difference to carbon emissions - and people's ability to cope with climate change. One study suggests that if the low variant population projection for 2050 is achieved, it could result in one to two billion fewer tons of carbon emissions than from the medium-growth scenario of 9 billion people. Built into the UN's population projections is the assumption of strong family planning programs, which are not a reality in much of the developing world. Even in the United States, which has the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world, half of all pregnancies are unintended.

Strengthening voluntary family planning programs that respect the rights of women, along with education and livelihoods programs, and integrating them with projects designed to address food insecurity and water scarcity will be critical moving forward in finding solutions to climate change. A promising model for adaptation exists through a community-based integrated "PHE" approach that integrates population, health and environment interventions. Linking clean technological advances with the community-based adaptation approaches, that include access to family planning and reproductive health, will enhance people's ability to cope with the changes in climate they are already experiencing. Reaching 2050 with 8 billion people on the planet rather than 10.5 billion is also important for addressing climate change.

The Human Faces of Climate Change in Ethiopia

2009-12-04T22:16:29Z

Originally published on RH Reality Check

The old adage, think globally and act locally, should be heeded in discussing solutions to climate change. While changes in industrialized country consumption patterns and technological solutions are needed to help stop the flow of dangerous greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and rendering the planet hotter and hotter, they will be insufficient to address the other side of climate change - helping the most vulnerable people adapt to its effects. Adaptation requires community-based and integrated approaches to help people cope. Involving communities and devising solutions based on local environmental and social conditions is the only sustainable approach.

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The human face of climate change is apparent throughout the world, and the Wichi Wetlands watershed in southwestern Ethiopia is no exception. A headwater of the Nile, the watershed has more than local importance. Protecting wetlands and making them healthier is not only good for individuals, families and communities, it's good for the climate too, since wetlands absorb more carbon than forests and are considered more sustainable as carbon sinks.

The Ethio Wetlands Natural Resource Association (EWNRA) began working in the watershed through a wetlands conservation project. In response to people's needs, activities under EWRNA have expanded to include health promotion and also to deal with a critical issue facing farmers in the area - dwindling land holdings due to a succession of generations of large families. The Wichi Wetlands Project works in collaboration with the local government, a relationship described by one official as close as "water and life." This integrated Population, Health and Environment (PHE) Project provides a good model for community-based adaptation strategies. In addition to environmental protection, health promotion and provision of family planning information and services, the project includes components addressing farming practices, agro-forestry, potable water cleaner cooking facilities, and micro-credit for women.

One farmer, 44 year old Gezaghun Gudeta, has already experienced the benefits of the program. In just a few years his fields have become a model in his kebele. Growing a new composite maize seed that he can both sell to the government and replant interspersed with grasses to hold the soil and capture water, his farm has greatly increased its yield - and his income. Organic composting has also boosted this agricultural output. Gezaghun, whose father also farmed this land, has seen changes in the local climate, most notably rising temperatures. Reversing the erosion of his farmland and restoring the wetlands is giving him a head start on adapting to these changes.

Protecting the wetlands is also having positive health effects on the communities - particularly on the lives of women. In addition to cook stoves that use less wood and produce less smoke, potable water is captured through community water pumps. This frees up time that women spent collecting water, which put them at risk of harm when traveling the long distances needed. In addition, the Tulube health center reported that while parasitic infections were the number one reason people sought care in 1998, today they have moved down to number six.

The residents are also planning their families through use of contraception. Couples like Zenhun and his wife Aster in Tulube are using the contraceptive Depo Provera and are happy with the three children they have. "We can educate and feed them well." They wonder why the government -and non-governmental organizations - has not been more proactive in ensuring access to family planning, noting the pressure they face providing for their children on increasingly small farm plots. Read more stories like Zenhun and Aster's in PAI's upcoming report, "Linking Population, Fertility and Family Planning with
Adaptation to Climate Change: Views from Ethiopia," released in early December.

Rapid population growth, resulting partly from lack of access to contraceptives, is straining family and community resources. Young people in the Wichi catchment area want help through formal education and life skills training. Schools, which often run double shifts lack adequate facilities and books for students. Education is the cornerstone of building human capital, and can empower girls and women especially to reshape their own lives and the lives of their children and families. Girl's education goes hand in hand with access to contraception to help women take control of their own fertility.

The world's current approach to climate change adaptation needs a dose of the social sciences to focus a lens on the human face of climate change. In addition to technology, adaptation approaches require attention to all aspects of people's lives through community-based integrated strategies. Current "PHE" - population, health and environment - projects offer a promising model. In Ethiopia, the Consortium for the Integration of PHE, was established to strengthen these projects. In addition to hydropower and early warning systems, among other technological advances, community social capital needs to be enhanced- including meeting the needs of youth. Individual resilience will be enhanced by strengthening human capital through education, health, family planning and empowerment. The people of Ethiopia's Wichi Wetlands are a model of how adaptation can work.

Pakistan's Demographic Challenge Is Not Just Economic

2009-11-16T19:11:38Z

Originally published in The New Security Beat

In a meeting with business leaders in Lahore in late October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pointedly warned of the potential economic impacts of Pakistan's rapidly growing population: "There has to be...in any plan for your own economic future, a hard look at where you're going to get the resources to meet these needs. You do have somewhere between 170 and 180 million people. Your population is projected to be about 300 million as the current birth rates, which are among the highest in the world, continue," she said.

]]> Pakistan is ranked 141 (out of 182 countries) in the Human Development Index. High rates of unemployment are compounded by low levels of education and human capital. Clinton noted that Pakistani women are more vulnerable to poverty; only 40 percent are literate, compared to 68 percent of men.

The Secretary's emphasis on the need to provide adequate education, jobs, and resources to motivate economic growth and improve well-being is welcome. But demography also has important political consequences. U.S. policymakers and the Pakistani government should consider the impact of population dynamics on the country's intensifying instability.

As Pakistan's population grows rapidly, it is maintaining a very young age structure: in 2005, two-thirds of its population was younger than age 30. Research by Population Action International has shown that countries with very young age structures are three times as likely to experience outbreaks of civil conflict than those with a more balanced age distribution.

The members of a "youth bulge" are not inherently dangerous, but when governments are unable to foster employment opportunities or the prospects of stability, a young age structure can serve to exacerbate the risks of conflict, as recently noted by John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, in a speech on "A New Approach to Safeguarding Americans."

As Secretary Clinton and her colleagues consider the complex barriers to achieving peace and stability for Pakistan's people, their humanitarian and development strategies should include demographic issues. When couples are able to choose the number and timing of their children, very young age structures like Pakistan's, can change.

Family planning and reproductive health services are fundamental human rights, but remain out of reach for many in Pakistan, where one-quarter of all married women (and 31 percent of the poorest) have an unmet need for family planning.

Greater access to family planning would lower fertility rates and increase the share of working-age adults in the population. In this transition, countries can harness the "demographic dividend"--a change that could turn Pakistan's age structure into an economic opportunity.

However, funding from the United States--the world's largest single donor for international family planning--has declined by one-third over the past 15 years. The foreign assistance funding priorities of the Obama administration should reflect this recognition of the linkages between population, development, and stability.

By addressing the high unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services of women in countries like Pakistan, the United States could help to create a more balanced age structure in future generations--and promote stability at the same time.

Elizabeth Leahy Madsen is a research associate at Population Action International (PAI). She is the primary author of the 2007 PAI report The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World..

Hope in Dialogue: Thoughts on the 5th Asia and Pacific Conference

2009-10-20T21:34:36Z

by Suzanne Ehlers

The 5th Asia and Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSHR) is currently underway in Beijing, China. Today, I am moderating a session co-hosted by the Asia Pacific Alliance (APA) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The session, titled Meet the Donors, explored resource mobilization and Millennium Development Goal 5 (improving maternal health) through the lens of a theme raised in the day's opening sessions: In a climate of continuing financial gloom, how is it that an intervention as cost effective as family planning and reproductive health is still having difficulty mobilizing adequate resources?

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Yet those of us in the sexual and reproductive health and rights community can identify long-time donors, both public and private, who have pushed the limits of their supportive capacity. At the national level, indigenous advocacy partners, service providers, and countless champions within national governments will go to bat for the issue as often as they are asked. They have seen the famous RAPID models; they have not missed the analysis that shows the undeniable return that one gets from investing in the reproductive health needs of women and their families.

What was clear from the donor roundtable, and from subsequent sessions that have addressed climate change, integrating reproductive health and HIV, and other nexus issues, is that the Asia Pacific region, like most of the world, understands the urgency of our predicament and is willing to explore new and alternative paradigms. Some guideposts exist, as suggested by Dr. Shiva Kumar on UNICEF India, including equity, the full protection and promotion of human rights (including sexual and reproductive rights), democracy, and the preeminence of women's experience and leadership. These should be easy enough to get behind they are principles that have guided our work as a community since at least Cairo in 1994, and some would even argue many years before Cairo.

Population Action International has long believed in the value of dialogue, and in fact we have dedicated core resources over many decades to convening and facilitating such exchange. A conference such as the 5th APCRSHR is heartwarming for me, as I look around the session rooms and at the youth commitment desk and see scores of others who share our values regarding dialogue. Ironic perhaps that the backdrop of this conference is a country government that has long struggled with such dialogue but there is often a hope in the unseen, and the advocates gathered here in Beijing give one much reason for belief.

Adapting to Climate Change: The Role of Reproductive Health & Family Planning

2009-10-20T21:19:13Z

by Clive Mutunga

In spite of all of the uncertainty leading up to the Copenhagen climate talks in December, one thing is clear: Adaptation needs are the most urgent in the least developed countries. These countries are expected to feel the brunt of climate change impacts: drought, floods, extreme weather, changing disease vectors, declining agricultural production - despite having contributed the least to it. For people in countries most affected by climate change, finding and supporting adaptation strategies that strengthen people's resilience and ability to cope with the effects of changes in climate is critical. My colleague Karen Hardee and I explored these issues and how population fits in our recent study, Population and Reproductive Health in National Adaptation Programs of Action for Climate Change.

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What we found was that the majority of National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) blueprints developed by least developed countries for addressing their most immediate and urgent adaptation needs identified rapid population growth as a factor that increased human vulnerability to climate change impacts in their countries. And it is no wonder: Nearly one billion people live in the world's least developed countries, the majority of which are expected to at least double their populations by 2050. Rapid population growth can exacerbate existing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change in multiple ways. For example, population growth in low lying coastal zones vulnerable to storm surges and flooding in Bangladesh is nearly twice as high as the national average; and in Ethiopia, the combination of rapid population growth and declines in agricultural production caused by climate change heighten food insecurity.

Two hundred million women world-wide have an unmet need for family planning. As caretakers of their families, women suffer the most from the effects of climate change. Access to voluntary family planning services will improve the health of women and their children, and increase the access and hence greater opportunities to diversify income sources. This will make them more likely to be able safeguard themselves and their families in the event of disaster hence increasing their resilience. Voluntary family planning, coupled with investments in girls' education and women's economic empowerment, can help improve livelihoods, protect the environment and reduce population pressure. Yet we found that only six of the 41 NAPAs identify family planning as a potential adaptation strategy, and only two prioritized family planning programs for adaptation funding.

The impacts of climate change are projected to be severe in many areas, and multi-sectoral in nature. As such, any and all interventions that can reduce vulnerability and increase resilience to climate change should be considered in an effective adaptation strategies. They should involve participation across development sectors including the health sector, and including reproductive health and family planning to maximize opportunities to to reduce vulnerability and strengthen livelihoods in the face of the greatest development challenge of the 21st century.