World Population Awareness

Population Progress

A United Nations report says poverty perpetuates and is exacerbated by poor maternal health, gender discrimination, and lack of access to birth control. This holistic view has helped slow the increase in world population. The average family has declined from six children in 1960 to around three today. The world's population is expected to grow by 39% over the next 45 years and births in the 50 poorest nations are estimated to rise by 228%. Education and improved health for women and access to contraception are vital. Smaller families are healthier families and improve the prospects of each generation. 201 million couples do not have access to contraception and if they could practice family planning, 22 million abortions, 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths, and 1.4 million infant deaths each year could be prevented. Since 1994 more women have access to education and other rights, and more early-marriage traditions are being opposed. Most countries have laws prohibiting violence against women, female genital mutilation, and other violations of human rights. rw

End to Population Growth: Why Family Planning is Key to a Sustainable Future

by Robert Engelman ... We are far from a world in which all births result from intended pregnancies. Surveys show that approximately 40% of pregnancies are unintended in developing countries, and 47% in developed ones.

Over 20% of births worldwide result from pregnancies women did not wish to occur.

It is estimated that 215 million women in developing countries are sexually active, but don't want to become pregnant; in other words, they have an unmet need for family planning. For various reasons they are not using contraception.

If all births resulted from women actively intending to conceive, fertility would immediately fall slightly below the replacement level; world population would peak within a few decades and subsequently decline.

It is not expensive to help all women to be in fully control of the timing and frequency of their childbearing. The key obstacles are religious, cultural, and political opposition to contraception or the possibility of population decline.

More research and a public better educated about sexuality and reproduction could engender a global social movement that would make possible a world of intended pregnancies and births.

Meeting the Cairo Challenge

Policies based on population control are moving towards more people- oriented, reproductive health approaches. Although it takes time for policy and legal changes to benefit women and men at the community and household levels, such changes are a critical first step. Policies and laws are needed to hold health services courts, schools, and other institutions, as well as communities and families, accountable. As such, the policy and legal changes made since 1994 based on human rights, equity, and meeting people's needs--are central to fullfiling the Cairo Mandate.

Africa's Birth Rate: Why Women Must Be Free to Choose

By Tewodros Melesse, IPPF Director-General and an Ethiopian national

Nearly all of the growth in the world - 97% - is occurring in less developed countries. Africa's rapid population growth -- 2.3% a year, double the rate of Asia's -- puts pressure on its economies as governments struggle to provide education and health services.

In sub-Saharan Africa the population issue is due to too many women lacking the freedom to exercise choice when it comes to childbearing. In remote locations women are forced to walk many kilometers to obtain contraceptives, and in some areas they are simply not available.

Globally two in five pregnancies are unplanned. Clearly 'unmet need' for contraception is a wasted opportunity to boost development and stabilize population growth through something women want and need: the ability to decide when to become pregnant.

Women are often required to have large families to improve their social standing and ensure their economic survival. In many countries girls marry at a very young age, become pregnant too early and cut short their education to take care of their young family. Poorly educated and unable to work they have no income, adding to the cycle of poverty. In addition, young mothers face terrible threats to their health such as fistula - a hole in the birth canal caused by prolonged labor without prompt medical intervention, leading to chronic incontinence and ostracization.

Women must be empowered to be able to make their own decisions free from fear of coercion or pressure from partners, family, and society. Their sense of self-worth should not depend on the number of children they have. They must have easy access to a range of safe, effective, and affordable contraceptives and the information and counseling needed to use them.

Contraceptive access needs to be backed by better health infrastructure - we have abundant evidence that when parents are confident that their children will survive, they will have fewer and invest more in each of them.

Experience has shown us that education for girls, legal reform and access to family planning have made a difference in many countries. While it's true that economic and social development leads to women having smaller families, the converse is also true -- that the gains that contraception has made possible in women's health make family planning one of the most successful international development stories.

The World is Home to 7 Billion People but How Far Has it Come?

by Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund

The world's population reaching 7 billion on Monday is milestone reminding us that there is much work to do on sexual and reproductive health and HIV if we are to meet the millennium development goals by 2015

To meet the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the international sexual and reproductive health and HIV communities are increasingly joining forces and reaching out to the most vulnerable and under-served populations.

It is critical that sound policies are in place to support comprehensive approaches, whether on providing women with family planning services, delivering sex education for young boys and girls, preventing child marriage, eliminating gender-based violence, managing sexually transmitted infections, ensuring access to condoms for dual protection, or providing antiretroviral treatment alongside cervical cancer screening.

These goals cannot be achieved without gender equality and empowerment of women.

Sexual and reproductive ill-health and HIV have the same root causes. These include economic inequality, limited access to appropriate information, gender inequality, harmful cultural norms and social marginalisation.

We must strengthen integrated services to improve their quality and accessibility, which means more people will use them. In turn, this improves health and behavioural outcomes, including condom use, and people's knowledge about HIV. Other benefits include reducing HIV-related stigma and discrimination, since addressing HIV will be part of normal core services within a facility. Forging partnerships between the sexual and reproductive health and HIV communities, including with networks of people living with HIV, is essential to reap sustainable benefits.

The world's new population milestone is a reminder that there is still much work to do to improve people's lives and meet the millennium development goals by 2015.

In a world of 7 billion people, every person should enjoy equal rights and dignity. And as our numbers grow in the years ahead, it is critical that we take actions to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, and that every young person is free of HIV and AIDS.

7 Billion Reasons to Invest in Women’s Reproductive Health

UN Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth, in recognition of the Oct 31 milestone of 7 billion people called for investment in international reproductive health and voluntary family planning as a means to achieving progress on all of the Millennium Development Goals.

"In a world of 7 billion, it is more important than ever that we address fundamental issues of poverty and inequality. We know that investing in women's reproductive health and voluntary family planning is one of the most cost-effective means to tackling our most pressing global development challenges."

Today there are 215 million women who want the ability to prevent pregnancy, but lack access to quality reproductive health care and voluntary family planning. Meeting this demand would have numerous benefits — not least of which is saving lives. Pregnancy-related complications are the leading cause of death among young women in developing countries. If the demand for family planning were met, maternal mortality would decrease by 32%, and infant mortality by 10%.

Empowering women with the tools they need not only improves their health and ability to raise stronger, healthier families, but it also promotes more prosperous and stable societies, resource and food security, and environmental sustainability.

Pathfinder: World Population to Reach 7 Billion

On October 31, the world's population is projected to hit 7 billion. This milestone highlights both progress and setbacks. Pathfinder celebrates improvements in health care that are leading to increased life expectancy and lowered risk of maternal and child death, while at the same time calling for increased attention and funding for reproductive health and family planning.

Worldwide, 40 percent of pregnancies are unintended because millions upon millions of women lack a basic human right: access to contraception. Never has there been a more critical time to invest in reproductive health and family planning.

**Read Pathfinder's official statement: http://www.pathfind.org/site/R?i=lv5g2M2CLSjpwteVazqVbQ

Reality Vs. Wishful Thinking

Chris Clugston developed an analytical tool - "Societal Overextension Analysis" - that measured overshoot in a way that ecological footprint analysis did not, rendering it almost obsolete. In his analysis he has inventoried 89 metals and minerals that are critical to the operation of any industrial economy, and found that 69 of them are scarce and are getting scarcer. The Green Apostles of False Hope can imagine that substitutes will be found for one or two or even a dozen of them---but not most of them, and any one shortage can bring the industrial edifice down.

Industrialism is unsustainable; it doesn't matter if it is under capitalism or socialism. Are we going to build factories out of straw? And if they do that, then their next task is to demonstrate that any civilization is sustainable, given that agriculture itself is unsustainable.

Chris is not arguing that we should return to a pre-industrial society, but has found that "it's physically impossible going forward." What "we" want is irrelevant, because Mother Nature could not care less about our wants or needs. The fact is, we will not have affordably accessible natural non renewable resources available to enable that preferred lifestyle.

This civilization is going down. Deal with it. We are hooked to a resource utilization mix that can't indefinitely deliver the goods. Some will promise deliverance by tech fixes, but as Chris points out, you can't replenish an aquifer by fixing the pump - a more technically efficient extraction process will not offset the growing demand for the non-renewable resource that is in short supply.

We are conditioned to demand a happy ending. Even Al Gore needed to tack on a Hollywood ending to his documentary. The belief that "every problem has a solution" is, as he puts it, "part of our cultural DNA". The American "can do" spirit finds a voice even in people like Paul Ehrlich, who recently told Alex Smith that if America could transform its economy from building cars to building tanks and planes in just four years to win the Second World War, a similar transformation to a sustainable economy should also be possible. The problem is, these "solutions" worked during the epoch of "continuously more and more", they will fail in the coming epoch of "continually less and less."

Some of us say "If we live smaller and live simply, we can continue Business As Usual. in fact, we will enjoy more community and more intimacy." Others say, "If we share the wealth, all will be well". Or "If we can design a new banking system and a steady state economy, we can enjoy a new prosperity". Or "If we can secure our borders, we can reclaim American jobs for Americans". But the fact is that whatever we do to reduce, conserve, recycle and share, our current resource utilization behaviour is unsustainable. Ecological Footprint Analysis doesn't give us a comprehensive measure of overshoot because it fails to make the critical distinction between RNR-based (renewable natural resources) and NNR-based (nonrenewable natural resources) societies as Clugston does. The diminution of affordably accessible NNRs are the limiting factor. Environmentalists habitually accuse their critics of denial, but one might ask what kind of denial is it that raises the alarm bell at climate change but is seemingly oblivious to impending resource scarcities which will surely kill billions by privation and conflict long before rising temperatures and sea levels do their worst?

My goal? To promote the least painful transition. Rapid but managed de-growth. End of this page in "The Best Way to Attain Population Sustainability" section, pg 1 ... Go to page 1.. 2 3 4 5 6 .. 6.28571428571429

The Cairo Program of Action

Acknowledges the complex personal and social contexts within which decisions about childbearing are made. It separates the problem of unwanted fertility, which can be addressed by access to family planning services, from other causes of population growth, including the desire for large families. Calls for other social investments -- such as the education of girls and the reduction of infant mortality -- to help make small families the norm.

The United Nations Population Conference

It took 40 years to build consensus.

1954 - The Club of Rome

1960 - USAID family planning services in the developing countries increases contraceptive prevalence from 14% in 1965 to 57% today. "Population control" sometimes used.

1974 - Bucharest UN World Population Conference. Industrial countries wanted to control population growth, while developing nations said that "development is the best contraceptive."

1984 - Mexico City U.N. Conference on Population becamed emeshed in U.S. debates over abortion and contraception.

1994 - Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)- characterized by an extraordinary degree of international cooperation and consensus, by improving health, education, and access to opportunity

Manuscript: Assessing Family Planning Use and Its Impact in Controlling Population Growth in Africa

by Nyiko Tricia Maluleke, Africa Institute of South Africa

Abstract:

The rate at which the world population is growing creates a great concern to the international community. It is this reason that the United Nations held a number of conferences to discuss the means to control world population growth. The most influential conference was the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo; the conference reached an agreement on the urgent need to control global population growth. Among others, the 20 year ICPD Program of Action declared family planning use as one of the critical approaches to be initiated by United Nations member states as a way of regulating world population.

Different member states were urged to promote and make access to family planning a priority for the purpose of regulating world population growth. As such, the paper seeks to appraise the use of family planning in Africa; the paper is driven by the motive to examine the impact of family planning use on fertility patterns and population growth in the continent. It is strongly argued in the paper that, in order for Africa to successfully achieve the ICPD goal of slowed population growth, access to family planning needs to be critically looked at, as it remains the intermediate factor in the possibility of slowed population growth in the continent and the world at large.

Click here for the entire article.

7 Billion Reasons

MS magazine Summer 2011 issue reminds us of an important perspective from which to view the approaching growth of the world's population to 7 billion people on earth. Suzanne Petroni guides us to "think carefully before you buy into the hype and join the simplistic call for limiting family sizes around the world."

It is true that the world's burgeoning population is challenging the world's resources, space, health and the systems which seek the management of its people. But as Petroni says "addressing these issues with top-down, numbers-driven approaches, however, has not only proven to be ineffective, it is also decidedly anti-feminist."

Petroni reminds us of relevant history harkening back to 1994 when the world population was approaching 6 billion, and 179 countries convened at the "International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo to discuss how to ensure a sustainable, healthy planet." This conference convened after the world's conversation had spent decades focused on controlling the world's population growth through "demographic approaches and the mass distribution of birth control", According to Petroni, feminists led the conversation at the conference and encouraged it away from the previously practiced paternalistic approaches towards a “more comprehensive and rights-based notion of sexual and reproductive health that included not only family planning, but also maternal and infant health, prevention of gender-based violence, empowerment of women and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections."

To continue, Petroni adds, "The ICPD approach recognized that when individuals and couples have the information and means with which to plan their families, they are more likely to choose to have smaller families. But in the developing world, it would take government support, including funding from industrialized countries,to help meet women's reproductive needs."

Education is still the most effective method for helping people all over the world choose to have small, healthy families, but presently the funding for getting the education and subsequent medical and prescriptive choices to those who would choose them, is still too small. To find out what else can be done, read the full article at: http://www.msmagazine.com/summer2011/7billionreasons.asp. lvp

Save the Children: Policy Brief on Population

Population's rapid growth receives too little political and public attention. At only 2.5 billion in 1950, it is now at 6.8 billion, and is predicted to stabilise between 7.8 and 11.7 billion around 2050 (median 9.1 billion). Because of the high impacts, it is important to stabilize at the lowest level possible.

Rapid population growth in the world's poorest countries is a major obstacle to poverty reduction. Rapid population growth rates and high fertility rates correlate closely with high rates of maternal and child mortality, and most of the countries that are furthest from achieving the Millennium Development Goals have high rates of population growth.

Success at reducing fertility rates does not require coersion. The forced sterilisation policies pursued by India and China in the 1970s were an outrageous violation of women's rights. In International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994 concluded that strengthening women's sexual and reproductive rights and social status; improving maternal and child health, nutrition and education; and increasing access to and the use of modern family planning, would work the best, empowering women tend to choose to have fewer children and to space their pregnancies. This has positive effects on the health of mothers and children alike and on the development prospects of poor communities and countries.

While total fertility rates have fallen across the developing world from an average of 5.6 children per woman in 1970 to 2.4 in 2005, almost all of the 50 least developed countries have much higher rates, in most cases more than five children per woman. By 2050, Uganda is expected to grow from 27 to 130 million; Niger from 14 to 50 million; Iraq from 29 to 64 million; and Afghanistan from 31 to 82 million. Jeffrey Sachs noted: "not only will the world's population continue to soar in the medium and high forecasts, but it will soar in precisely those parts of the world that are struggling the most today with extreme poverty, disease, famine and violence."

The Millennium Development Goals (MGD), agreed in 2001, made no reference to population growth, and the 2005 Commission for Africa report said almost nothing on the subject, despite the fact that there is overwhelming evidence of the damaging impact that rapid population growth has on poverty reduction efforts.

MDG 1 called for halving, by 2015, of the proportion of people living on less than US$1 a day. But the number of Africans living in poverty has increased by more than 100 million between 1990 and 2005 - partly as a result of population growth. In much of Africa rising populations have diminished the poverty-reducing effect of economic growth. MGD 1 part 2 calls for a halving of the proportion of people who are hungry. The slow pace of the decline in malnutrition is far too slow to achieve the goal, and the trend looks set to be reversed by food price rises and the economic downturn.

Where women lack rights, where they lack the status or the power to insist that their partners use contraception, or where modern family planning is simply not available, closely-spaced children and high fertility rates are very common. Children born less than two years after the next oldest sibling are more than twice as likely to die as a child who is born following a three-year gap.

High fertility strongly increases a woman's lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes. 210 million women each year suffer life-threatening complications and a further 536,000 die in pregnancy, during childbirth or in the six weeks following delivery. Of these, 67,000 maternal deaths result from unsafe abortions, carried out in unhygienic conditions and/or by unskilled providers. Many of these deaths could be avoided if women had access to modern family planning and, most importantly, felt sufficiently empowered to insist on its use.

380 women become pregnant each minute; half of these do not wish for or plan their pregnancy. When women have rights and the use of family planning maternal and child deaths are drastically reduced, simply by preventing unplanned babies from being born. 125 million women worldwide would like to control their fertility, but are either not using or unable to insist on using, modern contraception.

About 14 million girls aged 15-19 give birth each year, many lacking the social status or power to control their fertility. Many are forced into an early marriage. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, especially amongst the poorest social groups, see the highest rates of adolescent fertility. Girls aged 15-19 from the poorest groups are three times more likely than their better-off peers to give birth in adolescence, and bear twice as many children during their lifetime. They are also 2-5 times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as women in their 20s, and their babies are less likely to survive as well.

Population growth can increase the risks of political instability and conflict, due to poverty, rapid urbanisation, reduced supplies of farmland and water per capita, and pressures on already overstretched infrastructure and services.

The responsibility for the current climate crisis rests squarely with developed countries, whose consumption patterns are pushing the world's fragile eco-system beyond its limits, inflicting huge global costs - not least on the world's poor. But the necessary global transition to a low-carbon, less resource-intensive, less polluting economic future will not be infinitely harder to achieve in a world of 10 billion rather than 6.8 billion people.

The link between population growth and poverty is two-way: poverty often leads to higher fertility and population growth, while high fertility and high population rates can entrench poverty. The key is to replace this vicious circle with a virtuous one, where women's rights, and their capacity to exercise choice, alongside access to better healthcare and nutrition, and modern family planning, allow the poorest women to make informed decisions about family spacing and size. When they are able to do so, they consistently make choices that are good for their health and that of their children.

In developing countries where the birth rate has fallen, between 25 and 40% of economic growth is attributed to the demographic change. This dividend includes the benefits of improved health and nutrition (healthy and well nourished people are more productive) and the freeing up of resources for investment in education and skills.

Save the Children calls for donors, international development agencies and developing country governments to make a commitment to the rights of women and girls, and to tackling a range of structural inequities that prevent the realisation of these rights, and to improve access to and use of family planning.

A new target was added to the MDGs, calling for universal access to reproductive healthcare by 2015. On current trends, this target will not be met - in fact, national and donor resources for family planning have fallen since the mid-1990s. This must change: investment in these services must become a high priority for development spending. Comprehensive family planning services should also include the right to safe abortion and the necessary services to ensure this.

Secretary of State Clinton to Deliver Major Speech Renewing U.S. Support for Universal Access to Reproductive Health Worldwide

In a speech to mark the 15th year of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce the U.S. Government's renewed support for and dedication to reaching the ICPD goals and other related UN agreements, including the Millennium Development Goals, in the next 5 years.

The speech will occur on January 8, 2010, having been postponed due to extreme weather conditions in Washington DC. Please follow the headline link or go to www.icpd2015.org for a live streamed broadcast at 3:00 pm. A transcript and video of of the speech will be posted on this site following the event.

The "Cairo Consensus" was reached in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt by 179 nations. It was agreed to achieve universal access to education, especially for girls; reductions in infant, child and maternal mortality, and universal access to reproductive health.

The 1994 ICPD was followed by the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women which established the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2000 Millennium Summit, that established the Millennium Development Goals. These three conferences and their reinforcing commitments are the cornerstones of population and development policies globally.

The programs resulting from these conferences have improved and saved millions of lives through effective and affordable reproductive health programs, and has resulted in the growth of economies and preservation of natural resources.

International Conference on Family Planning in Uganda

More than 1,000 other policymakers, researchers, academics and health professionals joined together at the International Conference on Family Planning: Research and Best Practices, in Kampala. The conference was sponsored by Makerere University and the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins University

In the largest meeting ever focused on best practices and lessons learned from international family planning programs, participants shared results demonstrating family planning's powerful contribution to breaking the cycle of poverty and improving family health worldwide.

For example, CEDPA staff presented a poster session on its work to advance family planning usage in the central Terai region of Nepal. The project, Expanding Voluntary Use of Contraception in the Central Terai Region of Nepal, trained volunteers to disseminate information, counsel families and provide commodities to some of the most marginalized populations in Nepal.

Pathfinder Saves Lives

Pathfinder tells the story of Georgette, a mother in the Democratic Republic of Congo had been pregnant 20 times and lost 7 of her babies to starvation. Then she met a Pathfinder-trained community health worker. Empowered with information about family planning, Georgette was finally able to make decisions about her body and her future. She told one of Pathfinder's staff, "family planning saved my life."

In the first six months of 2011, Pathfinder was able to provide much-needed services through more than 9.4 million visits and contacts with Pathfinder-supported health providers.

Pathfinder says: your generous support and continued involvement - whether by signing a petition, sharing a video, attending an event, or following us on Facebook - means a lot.

UN Meeting Calls for Secure Supply of Contraceptives in Developing Countries

Representatives from 12 developing countries at a United Nations meeting declared today that voluntary family planning, secured by a steady supply of contraceptives, is a national priority for saving women's lives. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) launched Global Programme to Enhance Reproductive Health Commodity Security in 2007 to support national efforts to ensure a reliable supply of reproductive health essentials. The 12 countries are: Burkina Faso, Haiti, Ethiopia, Laos, Mali, Madagascar, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. They are the ‘Stream One' countries in the Global Programme.

More than 215 million women in developing countries want to avoid or space pregnancies but are not using modern methods of contraception, according to UNFPA.

"As of 31 October, the world will have 7 billion people, of which 1.8 billion are young people, and 90% of them live in developing countries. That implies that 1 billion young women are actively seeking the information and service we are talking about here," UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin said in opening remarks to the meeting in New York.

Participating countries have shown dramatic increases in the use of modern methods of contraception. In Niger, the contraceptive rate increased from 5% in 2006 to 21% in 2010. In Madagascar, it rose by 11% points from 2004 to 2009, up to 29.2%.

Supplies are reaching more people in the right place at the right time. In Burkina Faso, the number of health clinics reporting no shortfalls or stock-outs increased from 29% in 2009 to 81% in 2010. In Nicaragua, the percentage of service delivery points offering at least three modern methods of contraception increased from 66.6% in 2008 to 99.5% in 2010. In Ethiopia, the increase was from 60%in 2006 to 98% last year.

Dr. Osotimehin called on the 12 countries to put resources in their budget to meet the needs of their women and girls.

The First Lady of Sierra Leone, Sia Nyama Koroma, noted that support through the programme has increased the uptake of family planning and other reproductive health programmes, such as fistula activities and the screening of patients for breast cancer.

'Collectively, we are changing the face of maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone,' she said.

Brazil's Girl Power: Machisma - How a Mix of Female Empowerment and Steamy Soap Operas Helped Bring Down Brazil’s Fertility Rate and Stoke Its Vibrant Economy.

Not counting the stillbirth, the 3 miscarriages, and the baby who lived less than 24 hours. Dona Maria had 16 pregnancies and said she should have more than a hundred grandchildren by now, but only had 26. Her son José Alberto Carvalho has been studying the Brazilian demographic phenomenon that lowered their fertility rate to 2.36 children per family to the national average of 1.9, which is below replacement level and lower than the U.S. fertility rate.

Brazil is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and no official government policy has ever promoted birth control. Abortion except for special circumstances is illegal there.

The decline has occurred across every class and region of Brazil. Two children is typically the desired number. When a women is done having children, we might hear her say: "A fábrica está fechada," meaning the factory is closed.

About half the world's population lives in countries where the fertility rates have dropped to below replacement rate, about two children per family. In most of the rest of the world they've rapidly fallen except for sub-Saharan Africa.

Carvalho said "What took 120 years in England took 40 years here." Central to the reasons Brazil's fertility rate has dropped so far and so fast are tough, resilient women who set out a few decades back, without encouragement from the government and over the pronouncements of their bishops, to start shutting down the factories any way they could.

Many women under 35 have already had sterilization surgery because pregnancy accidents happen too easily, pills make you fat or sick, and children are too expensive, too much work.

Carvalho suggested a formula for quickly lowering a developing nation's fertility rate without official intervention from the government:

1. Industrialize dramatically, urgently, and late; force the country into a new kind of economy, one that has concentrated work in the cities, where the housing is cramped, the favela streets are dangerous, babies look more like new expense burdens than like future useful farmhands, and the jobs women must take for their families' survival require leaving home for ten hours at a stretch.

2. Make sure birth control is easily accessed: over-the-counter, without a doctor's prescription, if they can just come up with the money. Foster in these women a dismissive attitude toward the Catholic Church's position on artificial contraception.

3. Improve infant and child mortality statistics so there is no longer the need to have extra for insurance. Add a pension program, so that a big family is not needed to support them when they grow old.

4. Reward doctor for performing cesareans rather than waiting for natural deliveries and spread the word that a doctor who has already begun the surgery for a cesarean can probably be persuaded to throw in a discreet tubal ligation. Yes, the Catholic church would disapprove, but many women of faith felt in some matters the male clergy is perhaps not wholly equipped to discern the true will of God.

5. Introduce electricity and television. Depict the modern Brazilian family as affluent, light skinned, and small in evening soap operas, or telenovelas. One study found that the spread of televisions outpaced access to education, which has greatly improved in Brazil.

Bangladesh: On Population and Policies

by Abdul Bayes, Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University

In the early days since Bangladesh's independence, the very high human to land ratio precluded any positive projection of socio-economic progress. But Bangladesh managed to thrive through thick and thin and, over time, population growth decelerated and food production accelerated to keep the country on an even keel. Thanks to the family planning movement and technological breakthrough in food production - two of the important advancements that Malthus possibly overlooked in delivering the doomsday thesis.

The population of Bangladesh is estimated to be 142 - 150 million - roughly 20 million more than a decade ago and about double over 1974. The household size has shrunk to 4.4 compared to 5.5 in 1991. This could be due to migration and population control measures accompanied by growing awareness about small family size.

Taking the census result at its face value, the population density in the country has increased to 964 people per square kilometre from 834 in 2001. The late Dr Mahabubul Huq's once said: if all the people of the world were accommodated in the USA, the population density there would not be as high as it is in Bangladesh. It is the third most populated country in Southeast Asia after India and Pakistan.

Bangladesh's annual growth rate dropped from about 3.0% immediately after independence, to 2.3% in the 1980s, to 1.5% in the 1990s and now 1.34%. Still, every year about 2.0 million people are added to the total. The male-female gap has reduced. Now Bangladesh has 100.3 males against 100 females as compared to 106.4 males against 100 females in 2001. It may be due to preference for boys in South Asia. It is believed that boys will provide support to the parents in their old age.

The population growth rate must be reduced further in the wake of dwindling cultivable land. An average Bangladeshi woman of child bearing age produces 2.15 children now as against 5.1 in 1981. The infant mortality rate has gone down from 111 per 1000 live births to 39 currently.

The massive campaign against population expansion and for population control must firmly stand up shedding all sorts of complacency about declining growth rate. Fertility must be contained. Amartya Sen argues, when people "will know that, if they have a duty towards those who are not yet born, that duty is not to give them existence but to give them happiness".

This type of reasoning buttressed by the expansion of education, especially female education would lead people to lower fertility rates and smaller families which people would choose voluntarily. Bangladesh has appreciably traveled through this process adopting the family planning movement and greater availability of knowledge and facilities that helped reduce the fertility rate from 5.1 in 1981 to 2.2 in 2009 to debunk the belief that people will not voluntarily adopt family planning in the less developed countries.

At the end of the day, it is employment generation that raises opportunity costs of children and reduces family size. Another important area is health care facilities, particularly in rural areas. It is needed for income generation, to reduce infant mortality, and thus affect fertility choices.

A Brief Summary: Actions on Population Issues in Various Countries

by Bob Gillespie, President, Population Communication, in a speech to the Partners in Population and Development (PPD) meeting in Indonesia

Successful family planning, reproductive health and population stabilization policies and programs that deliver services and the communication and education strategies using a human rights approach have been established by governments over the last 50 years.

Women have been actively engaged at the village level in the design and implementation of providing quality services. Concurrent with the delivery of family planning and health services was improving the status of women, providing education and literacy programs and eventually access to credit.

Today the total fertility rate (TFR) of Taiwan is 1, South Korea 1.2, Thailand 1.8, Brazil 2.0, Tunisia, Turkey and Vietnam: 2.1, Mexico 2.2, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Morocco: 2.4. The states of India Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Tamil Nadu each have a TFR of 1.8, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala are at 1.9, Punjab and Sikkim at 2, Karnataka and Maharashtra at 2.1, and West Bengal at 2.3.

Indonesia and Bangladesh both have TFRs of 2.4, because of the dynamic leadership of their family planning programs.

In 1995 Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the UNFPA, presented the Statement on Population Stabilization from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Conference in Cairo, signed by 75 heads of government, to the Secretary General of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Dr. Sadik's emphasized, "The importance of population and development issues and the urgency of population stabilization must be recognized." Each year Population Communication promotes the Statement on July 11th, World Population Day.

The PPD have pioneered in a south-South cooperation that has underscored the 1994 Cairo ICPD principles, the challenge of fulfilling the declarations of the Beijing Women's Conference in 1995 and addressing the Millennium Development Goals ratified by 189 UN member states in 2000.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Director General in the Ministry of Population Welfare in Pakistan his report titled "Population Stabilization: the Case for Pakistan," contains the proposed population policy has been shared with international NGOs, presented to religious scholars of Pakistan, presented to media, and to the Senate Standing Committee and National Assembly Standing Committee. Next it will go to Council of Common Interests and thereafter it would be approved by the Cabinet. Already at the draft stage, the policy is being implemented and the next five year population program plan (2010-15).

In Egypt, Dr. Osama Refaat, Deputy Director of the Regional Center for Training in Family Planning and Reproductive Health of the OB/GY Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, authored the report, "Population Stabilization Policies and Programs in Egypt." He wrote, "The population stabilization report has been circulated to most of the targeted family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health organizations in Upper / Lower Egypt, as well as to policy makers.

Dr. Lolito Tacardon, Program Manager of the Philippines' Commission on Population, in his report, "People Beyond Numbers: the Road to Population Stabilization in the Philippines," gave the following demographic targets were set for the Philippines by 2015: CPR = Contraceptive Prevalence Rate: 63% (from 50.7 in 2006), TFR = Total Fertility Rate 2.4 children (from 3.3 in 2006), PGR = Population Growth Rate: 1.4% (from 2.04 in 2007)

Philippines Objectives: 1. Help couples/parents exercise responsible parenting to achieve the desired number, timing and spacing of children and to contribute to maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition;

2. Help adolescents and youth avoid early sexual engagement, teenage pregnancies, early marriages, STI and other psycho-social dysfunctions;

3. Contribute to policies, plans and programs that will assist government to attain population growth and distribution consistent with economic activities and sustainable development.

Indonesia's BKKBN (National Family Planning Coordinating Board) has a dramatic and pioneering role in bringing family planning and maternal and child health to the doorstep of every household in Indonesia, mobilizing support from all cabinet members, governors-general, parliamentarians, the mass media and achieved the active participation of the religious, business, labor and health infrastructure. Over 50,000 field workers conduct home visits. One million Indonesians wake up every day and provide health and family planning services in both the public and private sector. The social marketing program has extended access to services and now provides contraceptives to close to 20% of the women in Indonesia.

Bangladesh has achieved a dramatic mobilization of family planning and primary health services in both the public and private sectors. The country has a TFR of 2.4 Since independence many of the same actions initiated in Indonesia have governed population policy in Bangladesh. Fundamental to delivering family planning services was the integration of maternal and child health, nutrition and population education.

Conventional methods were delivered by full-time family planning field workers and a social marketing program focused on delivering contraceptives in retail outlines. 3,000 general practitioners took manual vacuum aspiration training at 22 provincial hospitals. There was an active information, education and motivation program using both the mass media and a multi-sectoral approach in the school system. 6,700 traditional birth attendants (TBAs), 13,500 Dais (village midwives) 13,500 family welfare attendants, 2,722 family welfare visitors and 18,000 family welfare workers were trained and mobilized from 1975 to 1978.

South Africa is the only country in continental sub Saharan Africa, with a TFR below 3, at 2.4, needs to lower infant and maternal morbidity and mortality to achieve contraceptive acceptance levels that will result in replacement size families. This can be done by increasing access to primary health care, preventing adolescent pregnancies, increasing the age at marriage, and reinforcing the small family value by improving the status of women through justice, literacy, credit, education and employment. Social marketing and community-based initiatives have been complemented with mass media campaigns, functional literacy programs, women's clubs and cooperatives and access to micro enterprise.

If Egypt achieves a TFR today of 2 today, the current population of 80 million will increase by 31 million by 2060. Pakistan has 185 million people today and will add 60 million with a TFR of 2 by 2060. In the Philippines, the current population of 94 million will increase by 31 million with a TFR of 2.

The speaker, Bob Gillespie, said: "During the last 48 years, I have had the privilege of advising governments on a human rights approach to maternal and child health and family planning in Taiwan, Turkey, Iran, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. In collaboration with my colleagues, I have designed 182 action and evaluation instruments that are available to anyone who wants to utilize them."

Smart Planning for the Global Family

The United Nations has projected that world population will 9.2 billion by 2050. This is the middle projection, the most likely one. However, if fertility rates come down slower than expected, world population could reach 10.5 billion by 2050. If the goal is to eradicate poverty, hunger, and illiteracy, then we have little choice but to strive for the low projection of 8 billion (and peaking) by 2042, which assumes that the world will quickly move below replacement-level fertility.

Slowing world population growth means ensuring that all women who want to plan their families have access to family planning information and services. 215 million women, 59% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent do not have this access. These women, along with their families, represent about 1 billion of the world's poorest, for whom unintended pregnancies and unwanted births are an enormous burden.

A former USAID official said that often "women live in fear of their next pregnancy. They just do not want to get pregnant." UNFPA and Guttmacher estimate that meeting the needs of these 215 million women who lack reproductive health care and effective contraception could each year prevent 53 million unwanted pregnancies, 24 million induced abortions, and 1.6 million infant deaths.

A universal family planning and reproductive health program would cost an additional $21 billion in funding from industrial and developing countries. In Bangladesh analysts figures that it would cost the government $62 to prevent an unwanted birth and save $615 in expenditures on other social services.

When countries move to smaller families, growth in the number of young dependents - those who need nurturing and educating - declines relative to the number of working adults. Removing the financial burden of large families allows more people to escape from poverty. At the national level, the demographic bonus causes savings and investment to climb, productivity to surge, and economic growth to accelerate.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand, and Viet Nam have been helped by earlier sharp reductions in birth rates. Although this effect lasts for only a few decades, it is usually enough to launch a country into the modern era. No developing country (except for some oil-rich countries) has successfully modernized without slowing population growth.

Many developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were successful in quickly reducing their fertility within a generation or so after public health and medical gains lowered their mortality rates. But others - including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Yemen did not follow this path and have been trapped in the demographic cycle of poverty (Large families are a greater financial burden on both parents and governments, and more impoverished people and societies tend to produce larger families.) These countries face the compounding of 3% growth per year or 20-fold per century. Limited land and water resources are strained. With large "youth bulges" outrunning job creation, the growing number of unemployed young men increases the risk of conflict. This also raises the odds of becoming a failing state.

Governments can help couples reduce family size very quickly when they commit to doing so. In just one decade Iran dropped its near-record population growth rate to one of the lowest in the developing world. Iran's success story involves: government's desire to lower population growth, raising public awareness through television, outreach to rural populations, health clinics, access to an array of birth control methods, female literacy and school enrollment.

India: Arunachal Pradesh: Govt Slashes Family Planning Incentive by Rs 300

The incentive given to women for undergoing a family planning procedure has now been reduced from Rs 880 to Rs 580 now.

State health authorities said that the government's `population stabilisation policy' will now focus on sustaining the current fertility rate at 1.8 children per woman. "After having met the targets, the government's efforts are now directed towards infant and maternal mortality reduction.

The cash incentive for vasectomy (male sterilisation), however, remains unchanged at Rs 1,100. The considerably higher incentive for men, authorities said, has been left untouched to encourage more men to undergo the procedure, which accounts for only 4% of the total family planning procedures. Tubectomies account for 96%.

U.S.: Young Women's Use of Reproductive Health Services Declines

A study found online in the American Journal of Public Health, from the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, reported that 8% fewer U.S. women ages 15 to 24 are receiving reproductive healthcare. 60% of young women receive services such as Pap tests, pregnancy tests, contraception prescriptions, tests for sexually transmitted disease and other gynecological and obstetric care.

Data was taken from the huge National Survey of Family Growth. The declines were seen across all demographic and socioeconomic groups. Overall, however, economically disadvantaged women are the least likely to get care.

This is in contrast to the period between 1995 and 2002, when reproductive health service use by young women had increased. Reasons offered for the decline: there has been a decline in public sector clinics serving economically disadvantaged women; increasing unemployment and the corresponding lack of health insurance; updated gynecological health screening guidelines that require fewer Pap tests; and legislation that has increased mandatory parental participation in adolescent sexual and reproductive health care.

The authors of the report suggest that new provisions for care under healthcare reform may bring some of those women back into care.

Africa: Miracle Or Malthus?

African is the only continent that is estimated to double in size, reaching 2 billion people by 2045 at current rates. Liberia and Niger are expected to double in size in less than 20 years—a stunning increase that is causing forecasts of Malthusian disaster for countries that cannot feed themselves.

Yet in north Africa families of two are the norm. In southern Africa, families of three prevail. Big cities, such as Zambia's Lusaka and Congo's Kinshasa, have fertility rates below four; the rate in Ethiopia's Addis Ababa is probably just two. Evidence of lower fertility is raising hopes that Africa can reap a "demographic dividend", the economic benefit countries get when the share of the working-age population rises relative to children and old people.

When fertility started to fall in Asia after 1960 and Latin America after 1970, the number of children a woman could expect in her lifetime fell from six to two in a generation. And contraceptive use spread rapidly. Family planners were amazed to discover that only a year or two after contraceptives had appeared in cities, illiterate women were using them in remote villages.

But in Niger and Uganda, the fall in fertility has barely begun. Where it has started, the decline is usually slower than it was in Asia. East Asian fertility fell by more than half in the 20 years to 1985. In Cameroon fertility has fallen only one point (from 5.7 to 4.7) in the past 20 years. And in eight African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, the decline has stalled—that is, after falling for a while, the rate got stuck at about five.

But fertility stalls happen: Argentina's fertility remained at three for decades; South Korea and Costa Rica also experienced hiccups. But Africa has experience more stalls than other countries, and so early in the process of decline.

In the 1970s the extended family played a big role in African life; children are often brought up by cousins or aunts. This reduces the burden of child-rearing on the parents and cuts the implicit cost of children.

Family planning is much less readily available in Africa than it was in Asia. By some estimates, a quarter of married women want contraceptives but cannot get them. That reflects reduced aid for family planning in the past 15 years and political ambivalence about cutting fertility in Africa itself.

Uganda's president once told a student gathering "your job is to produce children"; a Ugandan village chief says “to avoid having intruders grab our land we must keep producing many children."

Malawi increased modern contraceptive use from 17% of women in 1998 to 42% in 2010 but fertility fell only a bit,. Many Africans have traditionally used birth control to space their children, while still planning large families. The average lapse between first and second births in South Africa is almost four years. This method of control does cut fertility, but not as much as the other.

Infant mortality in Africa remains stubbornly high: 85 babies die for every 1,000 live births. True, that is half the level of the 1950s, but more than four times East Asia's current rate. By increasing mortality, the spread of HIV/AIDS probably kept fertility higher than it would have been. Last, female education in Africa, like contraceptive use, has lagged behind the rest of the world, and there is a close connection between educating girls and having fewer children.

The decline could accelerate if Africa were to get the conditions right. Africa's demographic transition may end up different it will be patchier (with occasional fertility stalls) and led by cities and a few countries (South Africa, Rwanda). Until Africa reduces rural fertility, it will not reach replacement levels.

From Russia Without Love

Russian women have been able to rely on legal abortion for birth control for decades. At 73 per 100 births in 2009, its abortion rate is the highest in the world. However, Russia's population is dropping, and in July, President Dmitri Medvedev signed into law measures that require advertisements for abortion to focus on alleged health risks. In October a measure to cap abortions at 12 weeks and impose waiting periods, ultrasounds and counseling on those seeking abortion cleared two of the three legislative hurdles required before becoming law.

The effect will be largely on women's autonomy and rights, with no guarantee that the decline in population will reverse. In Russia contraception has always been harder to come by than safe abortion. It is said that contraception is a Western imposition, a danger to women's health and a threat to the social fabric. The Soviet system rightly saw that modern contraceptive methods promoted individual women's autonomy, and preferred to keep reproductive health care in the hands of state medical providers. Birth control pills, IUDs and condoms were of poor quality and hard to access.

According to a Reuters report published on November 8, "With the arrival to the market of modern methods of contraception in the 1990s, abortion rates fell by almost a third but have since dropped more slowly." But the debt crisis of 1998 resulted in lack of state funding for family planning programs, which contributed to the low rates of contraceptive usage. And doctors tend to give patients negative information about contraception, in part because they are not adequately reimbursed for contraceptive counseling.

If Russia is serious about reversing population decline, it should be serious about reducing maternal and infant mortality rates - among the highest in Europe. And Russia still has far to go in closing the gender wage gap and in meeting the need for child care and early-childhood education. These are the very factors women consider when making childbearing decisions.

Thankfully, proposed legislation that would have required a husband's consent for a married woman seeking an abortion or parental consent for women under 18, as well an amendment to strike abortion from the national health plan were dropped after proving unpopular in the polls.

There is no easy answer to demographic decline, and making abortion the scapegoat for decades of neglect to women's well-being will not help. Building a stronger society that supports women and children is the long, slow, sure road to a thriving Russia.

Philippines: UN to Stop Funding Philippine Population Plan

The United Nations is planning to cut back its $1 million aid to the Philippine governments birth control program. The UN is cutting back next year due to lack of funding from members.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said that the fund was used for birth control injectable drugs and pills especially to those who just gave birth. She feared that the Philippines could experience a spike in its population growth rate recently pegged at 2.4% per annum.

This makes the passage of the Reproductive Health bill more urgent to ensure sustained funding for family planning programs.

In Pakistan, Birth Control and Religion Clash

Nearly 4 million babies are born in Pakistan every year, and most are born into poverty. The World Bank says 60% of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day, according to a new government survey,

Yet clerics in religiously conservative Pakistan tell the Muslim majority that the Quran instructs women to keep bearing as many babies as possible and say that modern family planning is a Western convention that offends Islam.

But a woman can temporarily put off becoming pregnant. The mufti says the Quran encourages mothers to space their pregnancies and to breast-feed their babies for prolonged periods. During that time the man may also use condoms and the rhythm method.

The mufti Zakaria says being poor should in no way limit having babies. Referencing the Quran, he says, "God will provide the resources and no one will starve." The Quran also instructs that children must not be deprived of a proper upbringing. However, in Pakistan 38% of all children under 5 are underweight, and according to government data, malnutrition is widespread among mothers.

The mufti answers: "Every society has its own value system. You should not judge us by yours. Children in the West lead a luxurious life. Earth is their heaven. Our children should not be compared with them," the mufti says. "Muslims don't pay much heed to the mundane pleasures of this world. Our reward will come in the next life."

The mufti adds that the West has taken modern contraception too far by removing the fear of getting pregnant and therefore removing women's sexual inhibitions. In Pakistan, "if a woman's fear is removed," says the mufti, she will stray into bad behavior "and offend God."

70% of married women use no birth control method at all. While the government is ineffectual in promoting family planning, Dr. Yasmin Raashid, a leader in obstetrics and gynecology in Pakistan says if properly followed, the Quran's teachings about spacing pregnancies would automatically mean smaller families. She says more than anything else illiteracy undermines family planning in Pakistan.

"Educated mothers limit their families," she says. "The tragedy in our country has been that the majority of women in Pakistan are not educated." She says educating young girls is the single best policy for reducing the country's high fertility rate and for achieving smaller, healthier families.

In Sri Lanka the literacy rate is 91%. and the fertility rate is 2.3, compared with Pakistan, where it is 3.9. In Pakistan, infant mortality is nearly six times as high as in Sri Lanka - a smaller, poorer country.

"And the only thing that you see different there is that women are educated there," Raashid says. "They know about their rights. They know what has to be done where their children are concerned. They know what to do where their own health is concerned.

In Pakistan, less than 1% of GDP is spent on health care. 12,000 mothers die in childbirth in Pakistan each year. Pakistan must invest in more midwives. Only 25% of women being delivered by skilled birth attendants.

Islamic law prevalent in Pakistan says the soul is deemed to come into the fetus at four months, and so up to four months, abortion may be induced for "good cause." But abortion has become a dangerous form of birth control as women submit themselves to unskilled practitioners. It's the fifth-leading cause of maternal death in Pakistan because of the infections related to incomplete abortions and septic abortions.

On woman the interviewer met said she was already ill and overburdened with seven children. But she's pregnant again. She wants to stop having babies, and told her husband so. But her husband wanted a second daughter.

Kenya: Maternal and Child Health Vulnerabilities Among Pastoralist Communities in Turkana

Delivery with the aid of a traditional birth attendant is the best a pregnant rural Turkana woman can hope for in a region with a shortage of health facilities and where only 8.2% of all the babies born are delivered in hospital.

The average pregnant mother in rural Turkana has to walk at least 50 kilometers to the nearest health center. There are only 34 dispensaries within a sixteen thousand square kilometer region. The biggest danger with walking is that a woman can bleed to death on the way.

Turkana men are often away from the homestead for months on end grazing their cattle, pregnant women in the region are often reluctant to leave their homes unattended even as their time for delivery nears, no one to take care of the children and animals, so they choose to deliver at home.

Uganda: When Women Go Without Needed Contraceptives

When Bernadette could not get her monthly contraceptive injection that was out of stock in the government health centres in western Uganda, she fell pregnant with her fifth child.

By the time she decided to pay for the contraceptive and went to Reproductive Health Uganda, a family planning association, she was already four weeks pregnant.

Many mothers in western Uganda have had unintended pregnancies due to shortages of commonly used contraceptives at government health facilities. Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection is one of the most commonly used.

The one-month contraceptive injection is popular because rural women find it easier to use compared to pills and/or they could take the contraceptive without the knowledge of their husbands.

Muhereza of Reproductive Health Uganda said that women were subjected to violence by their husbands when they unintentionally fell pregnant. "In the long run when a mother is not counseled well, then they resort to backyard abortions." Non-professionals perform most abortions. An estimated 297,000 abortions are performed in Uganda because most of the pregnancies are unintended according to a study conducted in 2005 by the Guttmaacher Institute between 2003 and 2005.

A health at another health center said, "We instead give them condoms advising them to convince their husbands to use protection until we have restocked. But some women are not be able to convince their husbands (to use condoms) so they fall pregnant."

Not all forms of contraceptives are suitable for everyone. For example, pills are not suitable for rural women because they are required to be taken daily. Most rural women prefer to take a monthly contraceptive injection.

Wagama Theresa, a senior nursing officer in a neighboring district said: "Some men have begun supporting their wives in family planning. But when they come and don't find their selected contraceptive (available), they get frustrated and you will never see the husbands back here," said Wagama.

Eliab Tayebwa, the head of Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS in Bushenyi district explained that the district experienced contraceptives shortages when there was a delay in delivery from National Medical stores.

Access to and use of family planning in Uganda has been identified as one of the factors in achieving 2015 United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but progress in both these areas has been slow.

The 2006 Uganda Demographic Health Survey showed that 41% of women in Uganda needed contraception, but could not get it.

FY 2011 Country Operational Plan Guidance Fails to Offer Detailed and Realistic Plan to Support HIV-FP (Family Planning) Integration

PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) should ensure that a HIV-positive woman who wants to prevent unintended pregnancy can receive family planning services at any PEPFAR location. The ability to meet the immediate needs of a woman and provide comprehensive prevention of mother-to- child transmission (PMTCT) programs should not be contingent on the presence of another program or funding stream.

In PEPFAR's annual Country Operational Plan (COP) guidance to the field, the Obama administration in principle continues to support an integrated, women and girl-centered approach to health services, but fails to provide implementers with the tools and guidance needed to make that a reality. This is a surprising development as it is the first COP released after the announcement of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) Plus Countries, and yet is out of step with public statements made by high-level officials touting the women and girl-centered, integrated approach to global health.

As the COP process, GHI and PEPFAR implementation and additional guidance continue to evolve, we encourage partners in the field to communicate with staff at their mission and in the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator about what is working and what is not in order to inform their future decisions.

The FY11 COP guidance says that:

Any family planning services, including the provision of contraceptives for PMTCT, that are integrated with HIV services, must continue to be funded out of separate accounts. While these integrated activities are encouraged, the family planning commodities must be funded using non-PEPFAR funds.

"Field teams are expected to prioritize opportunities to link PEPFAR-funded activities with those funded from separate accounts supporting reproductive health and family planning."

PEPFAR programs are encouraged to provide referrals to family planning programs and to co-locate services. While this is a positive development, it does not address the family planning needs of women living in countries without family planning funding or programs. One-third of the 33 countries required to submit an FY11 COP do not receive any family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) assistance from USAID.

Historically the U.S. has underfunded FP/RH programs and even recent important funding increases still leave FP/RH funding nearly 25% below their peak levels in 1995 (when adjusted for inflation) and below the U.S. fair share of addressing the needs of the 215 million women who want to avoid pregnancy, but do not have access to modern contraception.

Without significant scale up of funding for FP/RH, meaningful integration of these services will not occur using the referral and co-location model articulated in the COP.

The COP rightly identifies PMTCT programs as an ideal platform to deliver other essential health services, including family planning, but again misses an opportunity to maximize the improved health outcomes through fully supporting the tools needed to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has long identified family planning as one of four essential components of PMTCT programs and many countries have both high HIV prevalence rates and high unmet need for family planning.

While it was encouraging to see that PEPFAR funds could support much-needed PMTCT training for health workers that includes MCH (Mother and Child Health), family planning and reproductive health services for women living with HIV, the impact of having a trained work force and increased demand for these critical interventions is limited if the commodities needed to deliver the services remain unavailable. By issuing a COP that does not account for the increased demand for contraceptives that will likely result from training and community mobilization, PEPFAR falls short of ensuring that HIV positive women will be able to prevent unintended pregnancy and plan the timing and spacing of their pregnancies. rw

How Do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?

Demographic change is closely associated with greenhouse gas emissions, and that population dynamics will play a key role in attempts to mitigate and adapt to the effects of changes in the climate system in the future. according to the strong evidence that exists.

By looking at only population size as the demographic variable in climate models, the contribution of "population" to climate change has been underestimated. Understanding fertility, population growth, urbanization, migration from environmentally depleted areas, household size and composition, and growing population density in marginal and vulnerable areas, is also crucial for the world to adapt to and cope with the adverse impacts of current and projected climate change.

Climate change threatens to cause the greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen, Sir Nicholas Stern warned in 2006. One percent of global GDP must be invested in order to mitigate climate change, and that failure to do so could risk a recession worth up to 20% of global GDP.

Climate change poses a grave challenge for the whole world and has wide ranging implications for human well-being as well as for security, including the risk of armed conflict over resources and large-scale migrations of population within nations and across national borders. 150 million environmental refugees will exist in 2050, says the International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), due mainly to the effects of coastal flooding, shoreline erosion and agricultural disruption.

Population policies and programs that promote universal access to voluntary contraception, when linked with broader efforts to address a range of demographic factors and meet development and poverty reduction objectives, such as the MDGs, particularly investments in family planning and reproductive health, girls education, economic opportunities and empowering of women, and in youth. These would help least developed and developing countries to speed up their demographic transition, enabling them to achieve demographic windows of opportunity which may contribute to economic growth and a greater capacity to cope with climate change impacts.

Contraception, a Life-saving Investment for the Philippines

In the Philippines, more than half of the 3.4 million yearly pregnancies in the country are unplanned, resulting in high costs to women, their families and the national health care system. This very high rate of unintended pregnancy is impeding the Philippine’s development goals.

Unintended pregnancies are highly preventable if women have access to voluntary family planning information and services, particularly modern methods of contraception. Investing in contraception significantly improves public health, while also saving money and bolstering national economies.

Researcher by the University of the Philippines Population Institute and the New York City-based Guttmacher Institute found that expanding access to modern contraceptive methods as well as natural family planning in the Philippines would result in 800,000 fewer unplanned births, 500,000 fewer induced abortions and 200,000 fewer miscarriages each year. It would prevent the deaths of 2,100 women—nearly half of all deaths from pregnancy related causes—and prevent the cumulative loss of 120,000 healthy years of women’s lives that are currently shortened or impaired as a result of unintended pregnancies.

The 35% of Filipino women aged 15-49 who are poor account for more than half (53%) of the unmet need for contraception.

WHile providing modern contraceptive services to all women at risk of unintended pregnancy would raise annual family planning costs from P1.9 billion to P4 billion, on the other hand, the medical costs associated with unintended pregnancy, including treating the consequences of unsafe abortion, would fall dramatically—from P3.5 billion to P600 million—resulting in a reduction of P2.9 billion in these costs and a net savings of P0.8 billion.

These savings could then be used to improve and expand a range of health and social services, making it much more possible for the Philippines to achieve its development goals.

The reason to invest in voluntary family planning is to let women decide when to become pregnant and how many children to have. If we succeed in this goal, the payoff will be great for Filipino women, their families, their communities and society overall.

Finance: Development Banks Lag on Sexual Health - Report

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) that lend to poor nations have spent little money on sexual health, and, in some cases, have followed policies that impeded women's empowerment.

The study examines the quantity and quality of funding for reproductive health from 2003 to 2006.

It records a decline in World Bank spending and a shortage of support for reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. This occurred although these banks have pledged to help countries meet the MDGs.

The World Bank was the largest funder from 2003-2006 approving a total of 7.5 billion dollars but funding declined from 2.7 billion dollars for such projects in 2003 to only 1.5 billion in 2006.

This comes after the bank was criticized for attempts to water down bank policy on reproductive health.

The African Development Bank Tunisia-based lender gave 44 million dollars for HIV/AIDS projects from 2003-2006 and 108 million dollars for reproductive health during the same time period. The Asian Development Bank's investments in reproductive health and HIV/AIDS from 2003 to 2006 totaled 47.4 million dollars. Last year, the bank lent 8.5 billion dollars for various projects.

The Inter-American Development Bank provided three million dollars in loans and grants for reproductive health and HIV/AIDS during the same four years. MDBs initiatives often lack gender rights projects.

Compounding lack of gender sensitivity is their unsustainability caused by project shortcomings including short-term duration and lack of funding for recurrent expenditures.

The IMF was faulted for loan and policy advice that force most borrowing governments to place limits on public sector wages and reduce the number of doctors and nurses. Development banks have introduced systems to monitor progress on gender equality policies and there has been modest progress. rw

India;: Prime Time for Health Schools

In India a major task for UPA has been the National Rural Health Mission. Targetted for 2005-2012, it seeks to halve infant mortality to 30 per thousand live births, reduce TFR from 3 to 2.1, bring down maternal mortality rate to 100 per lakh while increasing bed occupancy in first referral units to 75%.

Over 4.35 lakh ASHAs or voluntary trained community health workers have been selected with 2 lakh ready to work. Over 21 lakh patients have benefited. Leprosy has been eliminated.

India hopes to reverse the HIV epidemic through access to preventive services, counselling and testing. More hospitals provide HIV care and access to blood screening and safe blood is ensured.

But nearly three-fourths of all infants between 6-35 months, 54% of pregnant women and over 50% of married women are anaemic.

Women have mostly acquired the virus from regular partners who were infected during paid sex. They have low knowledge of the scourge. Low immunisation levels is another concern with only six states boasting of a 60% strike rate.

Other health indicators also indicate big gaps in public healthcare delivery.

Of the 10,000 primary health centres, only about 40% have adequate supplies, equipment and staff. Of over 1,600 community health centres, each of which is supposed to cater to a population of 80,000-1.2 lakh, less than a quarter had adequate equipment and not even 15% had enough staff.

On education, UPA government has increased total allocation by 34% to Rs 32,352 crore in 2007-08. Till November 2006, 1.81 lakh new schools had been opened, 7.38 lakh teachers had been appointed, 1.5 lakh school buildings and 5.8 lakh additional classrooms had been constructed. Nearly 2 lakh toilets have been constructed.

Free textbooks were distributed to 5.78 crore children annually. During 2007-08, appointment of 200,000 more teachers and construction of 500,000 more classrooms are targeted.

A bill was tabled for amending the Prevention of Child Marriage Act which includes provisions like declaring a marriage void at the option of the child. Employing children as domestic helps has also been prohibited. rw

Gambia, The;: YMCA Assesses Reproductive Health Project

The YMCA has organised a workshop in Gambia. The Secretary of The Gambia YMCA said the project was funded by the YMCA branch in Finland and commended participants for their resolve in the fight against HIV, STIs, and the menace of baby dumping and unwanted pregnancy.

He emphasised the struggle to eradicate illicit drugs and their abuse by young people continues to be a priority to The Gambia YMCA.

Nfred Crookes, ARH Finish Project co-Supervisor, said the workshop seeks to gather analysis of the successes and failures during the three-year period, and make recommendations for end of the project report. The workshop created the platform to assess how beneficiaries have been transformed. rw

Call for Europe to Take the Lead in Revitalising Family Planning Agenda in World's Poorest Countries

Investment in family planning should have a higher priority because it poses a greater threat to international development than HIV. Leadership may need to come from European governments rather than the US.

Family planning reduces poverty, maternal, and child mortality. It contributes to universal primary schooling, empowers women and enhances environmental sustainability by stabilising the population of the planet.

Family planning programmes have raised contraceptive practice from less than 10% to 60% and reduced fertility in developing countries from six to about three births per woman. But in half the low income countries, contraceptive practice remains low and population growth high. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa expect their populations double in the next few decades, yet family planning has dropped down the international agenda, and global funding has waned.

In Ghana, HIV is sucking funds, staff, and political energy from family planning. In Uganda, with a longstanding HIV epidemic, population is projected to grow from 30 million today to 61 million by 2025, and to 127 million by the middle of this century.

Others will be prepared to take the lead, perhaps European countries, the World Bank, or even the Gates Foundation.

What is what is lacking is a broad coalition of support, adequate funding, the aceptance of smaller families and modern contraceptives. rw

The Word on Women - Niger Starts to Tackle Soaring Population - with Help of Imams

Until recently the subject of family planning in Niger was taboo, but commissioner Kristalina Georgieva, the European Union's top humanitarian-aid official, was pleasantly surprised this time to see a project teaching women about contraception and the importance of spacing births.

The local Imam where she visited "was quoting the Koran saying there's a verse that says there has to be time between the birth of children so the children and mother can recover and be strong."

The support of the local religious leaders at the health centre she visited in Bambey, in western Niger, was crucial for bringing down the high rate of population growth, she said. The growth was putting a strain on a country that is among the poorest in the world, that struggles with a harsh climate and is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Since independence in 1960, Niger's population has risen from less than 2 million to 15 million plus.

Now there is "remarkable openness to address family planning". "At the level of the president, prime minister, ministers and cabinet there's an openness to discussing family planning. There's an openness that 3.3-percent population growth is not sustainable," she added.

"There are already activities on the ground (for) family planning in a very community-based and respectful manner … The topic is not taboo anymore."

Mothers need to space their children to avoid back-to-back pregnancies which contribute to malnutrition and keep mothers weak. "That's where there is potential to work hand in hand with community leaders and religious leaders. It has to be culturally acceptable to work."

The annual hungry season in Africa's Sahel countries is expected to begin in late February or early March - several months earlier than usual. Aid agencies say between five and nine million people are at risk.

Talking about population growth in relation to food shortages is a sensitive issue, partly because large families are considered important in many cultures, particularly where people rely on their children to help on the land and to support them in old age.

Many argue that the real causes of food shortages are political and economic. Georgieva says a food crisis is looming in the Sahel due to poor rains, bad harvests, food-price hikes and the return of migrants from Libya, among other factors.

But she also argues more generally that it is time for the world to pay more attention to managing population growth in fragile environments. When she visited Kenya last year she realised that in 1963 it had more or less the same population as her own country Bulgaria - well below 10 million. Today Bulgaria is at 7.5 million whereas Kenya's has soared to 40 million.

The populations of other affected countries had also grown five times and this meant that when there were droughts the impact was all the more severe.

For a very readable look at some of the arguments on why population growth is not the cause of famine, take a look at this article published by Al Jazeera: Famine in the Horn of Africa: Malthus beware. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/08/20118178844125460.html

Time for Uganda to Prioritize Family Planning Investments

Facing severe budget shortfalls at home, many donor countries are cutting back their foreign aid programs, including support for crucial international family planning programs. The United States, the global leader in supporting contraceptive services in the world?s poorest countries, recently reduced its 2011 international family planning and reproductive health assistance by $33 million.

Uganda must step up its own funding for family planning. The time to act is now. The country has experienced strong economic growth in recent years, but we should remember that social and economic progress is linked to improved access to quality family planning services. Such services save women's lives, save the country money, and create a healthier, more productive society. Failure to support these services now will only end up costing more down the line.

Low levels of contraceptive use are already taking a toll. 70% women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using an effective contraceptive method. More than half of all pregnancies are unintended.

In rural areas, where 85% of the population lives and where family planning services are scarce, the poorest women now have two more children, on average, than they want, increasing economic hardship among the most vulnerable families, leaving them with fewer resources to invest in education, health care and other basic needs.

Unintended pregnancy is also a serious threat to the health and survival of women and newborns, often resulting in high-risk births occurring too soon after a previous delivery or when a woman is too young. This reality is starkly reflected in Uganda's high rates of maternal and newborn deaths.

Kenya: Melinda Gates: Discussing Family Planning with the Mothers of Korogocho

Melinda Gates, philanthropist, talked with new mothers in Korogocho, a large slum in Nairobi, Kenya. She asked them "Why do you want to plan the number and spacing of your children?"

One woman said she wanted to be able to feed all her children.

Another woman added, "Where am I going to keep them? Under the bed?" It was funny until she explained she had only a single room in which to raise her children. "Our houses are toilets," she said. "Why bring so many kids into a toilet?" It was impossible for her to raise her children in a safe and healthy environment.

One woman said if she had too many children, her husband would leave her.

Finally a woman summed the whole conversation up in one sentence. "I want to bring every good thing to one before I have another," she said.

"As different as many of their experiences are from mine -- fighting their husbands for the right to plan, struggling to put food on the table -- there is something universal in motherhood that unites us. We all want to bring every good thing to our children," Gates said.

World Must Wake Up to the Coming Crisis in the Sahel

There is a zone of human pain in the failed, and failing states along the Sahel on the edge of the Sahara desert, and across to Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, says Professor Malcolm Potts.

Rapid population growth, global warming, poor governance and a hideous mistreatment of women are combining in a perfect storm which could lead to unprecedented levels of environmental stress, starvation, escalating conflict and massive waves of migration. The scale of these problems goes beyond the usual response to a potential humanitarian disaster. Unless strong action is taken, the catastrophe now unfolding in the Sahel has the potential to kill as many tens of millions of people.

This is a global problem and it needs a global understanding and a global response. New international strategies need to be built about food security, family planning, gender equity and governance that have major geopolitical implications for the rest of the twenty-first century. A proper response will require billions of dollars , which would likely come primarily from the World Bank, regional development banks and other traditional donors.

Today's extremes of drought, caused by climate change, could become averages by 2050. Overgrazing, poor agricultural practices, lack of infrastructure and uneven governance could result in inefficient use of natural resources including soil, water and ecosystem-based services. Soil erosion and destruction of trees for firewood are about to collide with climate change turning serious problems into a catastrophe.

From October to May there is no rain and temperatures can exceed 120° Fahrenheit (49° C). Tremendous dust storms cover huge areas of the Sahel and Northern Nigeria. Climate change will make a bad situation worse. Droughts that used to occur every 10 years are already happening every five and they will be interspersed with torrential downpours leading to flash floods that wash away homes and crops.

Already agricultural output cannot keep pace with population growth. The UN Environment Programme sees the Sahel as "heading towards an environmental disaster" and feeding tens of millions of people as "mission impossible."

44% of children in Niger are stunted and face a life-long penalty in stunted growth and inhibited brain development if they survive.

The third largest city in Kenya, after Nairobi and Mombasa is now a refugee camp of drought victims in the north. It was built for 400,000 refugees, but every day an additional 1,500 women and children, fleeing from drought in Somalia and Ethiopia, arrive.

The worst drought in 60 years is hitting the Horn of Africa; 13 million people are already hungry. "750,000 could die in the next six months unless aid efforts were scaled up" says the New York Times. But this is just a sign of things to come. We must recognize the nature and the scale of the problem and focus on outcomes not process.

50 million people live in the Sahel. In Niger population is projected by the UN to rise from 16 million today to almost 60 million or possibly even higher in 2050 and an implausible 139 million by 2100 million, implausible since death rates may rise due to starvation or disease.

Burkina Faso is projected to go from 16 to almost 50 million people by 2050, Chad from 11 to almost 30 million. Mali is projected to more than double from 15 to 35 million and Somalia from under 10 to over 20 million.

Until recently, the UN's World Population estimates assumed that most countries would reach 2.05 children per women by 2050, and that least developed countries would fall to 2.41, but demographers have recently accepted that birth rates in the high fertility countries will not reach replacement level fertility any time soon. The highest world projection for the end of the century is now 15.8 billion ( the lowest 6.2 million) at the century's end. These few high fertility countries (averaging from 4 to over 7 children per woman) with a total population of 1.2 billion today, are projected to be the largest population block in the world by 2100.

Delay in raising the age of marriage and in instituting family planning will be as lethal in a country like Niger, as was the delay in instituting HIV prevention in Africa in the 1980s. Today in Niger, only one in 1000 women completes secondary education. In the Sahlel, few people are educated, making non-agricultural employment virtually impossible. Few girls enter secondary school and virtually none complete it.

Unless investments are made today in education, especially for girls, and in family planning in these high fertility regions then the world will become even more divided than it is today between rich and poor and between stable democratic nations and failed states. The Sahel presents the most immediate, and also the most easy to document, set of problems.

We must make family planning easy to obtain. In the case of family planning we have half a century of robust evidence of what works. We must meet the unmet need for family planning. Even failed states have markets than can be tapped into. We must knock down uninformed medical barriers to family planning. We must recognize how common misinformation is leading women to believe family planning is dangerous.

In Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot, in refugee camps along the Thai border, neither UNICEF nor Doctors Without Borders were supplying contraception in the camps. But when this was done by another NGO, use of contraceptives jumped from zero to 52% of married women in one month.

Sahlel countries see a very high rate of child marriage. Increasing the age of marriage by five years reduces population growth by 15 to 20%, according to demographers. High fertility countries will not slow population growth rate until the average age of the first birth is raised. In Niger, the average age of marriage is under 16.

Under-age girls are married off to older men every day. Most child brides either never go to school, or drop out when they marry. Compared with mature women, these girls are twice as likely to be beaten by their husbands and five times as likely to die in childbirth.

Poor soils and unpredictable weather are outside human control. We don't know how to ameliorate corruption in contemporary governments. Subsidies to American farmers depress African markets unfairly, but they are unlikely to change soon. But addressing population through access to family planning, eliminating forced marriage for young girls and raising the age of the first birth have more promising solutions.

In a project involving a polygamous society on the border with Niger, where the average aged of marriage is 14.5, we found that a small educational grant of $196, spread over six years, had resulted in between 82% and 92% of girls remaining in school.

We need to apply funds to pilot projects, such as the success keeping girls in school, on a nation-wide scale. We may need careful, random control trials to show that cash transfers work.

Africa: Miracle Or Malthus?

African is the only continent that is estimated to double in size, reaching 2 billion people by 2045 at current rates. Liberia and Niger are expected to double in size in less than 20 years—a stunning increase that is causing forecasts of Malthusian disaster for countries that cannot feed themselves.

Yet in north Africa families of two are the norm. In southern Africa, families of three prevail. Big cities, such as Zambia's Lusaka and Congo's Kinshasa, have fertility rates below four; the rate in Ethiopia's Addis Ababa is probably just two. Evidence of lower fertility is raising hopes that Africa can reap a "demographic dividend", the economic benefit countries get when the share of the working-age population rises relative to children and old people.

When fertility started to fall in Asia after 1960 and Latin America after 1970, the number of children a woman could expect in her lifetime fell from six to two in a generation. And contraceptive use spread rapidly. Family planners were amazed to discover that only a year or two after contraceptives had appeared in cities, illiterate women were using them in remote villages.

But in Niger and Uganda, the fall in fertility has barely begun. Where it has started, the decline is usually slower than it was in Asia. East Asian fertility fell by more than half in the 20 years to 1985. In Cameroon fertility has fallen only one point (from 5.7 to 4.7) in the past 20 years. And in eight African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, the decline has stalled—that is, after falling for a while, the rate got stuck at about five.

But fertility stalls happen: Argentina's fertility remained at three for decades; South Korea and Costa Rica also experienced hiccups. But Africa has experience more stalls than other countries, and so early in the process of decline.

In the 1970s the extended family played a big role in African life; children are often brought up by cousins or aunts. This reduces the burden of child-rearing on the parents and cuts the implicit cost of children.

Family planning is much less readily available in Africa than it was in Asia. By some estimates, a quarter of married women want contraceptives but cannot get them. That reflects reduced aid for family planning in the past 15 years and political ambivalence about cutting fertility in Africa itself.

Uganda's president once told a student gathering "your job is to produce children"; a Ugandan village chief says “to avoid having intruders grab our land we must keep producing many children."

Malawi increased modern contraceptive use from 17% of women in 1998 to 42% in 2010 but fertility fell only a bit,. Many Africans have traditionally used birth control to space their children, while still planning large families. The average lapse between first and second births in South Africa is almost four years. This method of control does cut fertility, but not as much as the other.

Infant mortality in Africa remains stubbornly high: 85 babies die for every 1,000 live births. True, that is half the level of the 1950s, but more than four times East Asia's current rate. By increasing mortality, the spread of HIV/AIDS probably kept fertility higher than it would have been. Last, female education in Africa, like contraceptive use, has lagged behind the rest of the world, and there is a close connection between educating girls and having fewer children.

The decline could accelerate if Africa were to get the conditions right. Africa's demographic transition may end up different it will be patchier (with occasional fertility stalls) and led by cities and a few countries (South Africa, Rwanda). Until Africa reduces rural fertility, it will not reach replacement levels.

Family Planning Key to Afghan Maternal Deaths - U.N.

Afghanistan's maternal mortality rate of one mother for every 60 births would be reduced if mothers spaced their pregnancies.

Bringing the toll down means that trained birth attendants are present, emergency hospital care is available and so is family planning.

People have to understand that family planning was not against the rules of Islam but is well-enshrined in the Koran, that says that women should nurse for two years, it was a form of family planning.

Spacing allows a mother to regain her health before becoming pregnant again and allows a family to devote more attention and resources to each child.

The right to health, education, the right to income and the right to life can be achieved by planning the family. rw

Bill Gates - Saving the Lives of Children Reduces Population Growth

While most of us assume that saving the lives of children will contribute to overpopulation, Gates said the contrary is true. "The key thing, the most important fact that people should know and make sure other people know: As you save children under 5, that is the thing that reduces population growth. That sounds paradoxal. The fact is that within a decade of improving health outcomes, parents decide to have less children."

"As the world grows from 6 billion to 9 billion, all of that population growth is in urban slums," he said. "Slums is a growing business. It's a very interesting problem."

He said no matter what we care about—the environment, schools, nutrition, conflict—the issues are insoluble at 3 percent population growth per year. "Nobody can handle that type of situation, so the best thing you can do is avoid those deaths."

Impact of Child Mortality and Fertility Preferences on Fertility Status in Rural Ethiopia

Child mortality is an overwhelming factor in determining fertility among rural Ethiopian women. According to a study conducted by physicians among over 1100 Ethiopian women, those who were older when they married and had their first child tended to have fewer children.

Moreover, women who did not lose children in infancy had far lower fertility rates than those who lost one or more children.

Mozambique: Drug Given to Moms After Childbirth Sparks Controversy

In Mozambique, a woman has a 1 in 37 lifetime risk of maternal death. Most of those deaths will be from postpartum hemorrhage, with one woman dying from postpartum hemorrhage every seven minutes. In the U.S.,only 1 in 2,100 die of of maternal causes, according to the World Health Organization.

Health experts say the drug misoprostol is saving women's lives around the world. It's also controversial because it can also be used to induce abortion.

Mozambican OB-GYN doctor Cassimo Bique lead a year-long trial of the drug misoprostol designed and carried out by an American women's health nonprofit called Venture Strategies Innovations. Bique said a woman can die as early as two hours after childbirth.

The traditional birth attendants use a brightly colored cloth called the capulana, typically worn as a skirt, shawl, or baby sling, to soak up blood loss from the mother. Before misoprostol, they would need three or four capulanas to soak up typical blood loss from the mother. After miso, they needed just one.

When the traditional birth attendants are asked if they have watched women die because they were bleeding after giving birth, before miso was available, they nod and say yes.

Midwife Training, Access Key to Saving Mothers' Lives

A new report, The State of the World's Midwifery 2011, from UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, says that up to 90% of maternal deaths worldwide could be averted by fielding 350,000 more midwives able to refer the worst complications to specialized care.

3.6 million lives could be saved by 2015 by training enough midwives and creating adequate facilities to deal with complications in the 58 developing countries where maternal and newborn deaths are highest.

Inadequate or insufficient health care causes 358,000 deaths annually of women who are pregnant or giving birth, 2 million newborns deaths within the first 24 hours of life, and 2.6 million stillbirths.

58 countries where 91% of all maternal deaths occur were examined and a major gap between the number of midwives available and those needed to save mothers' lives was found, as well as major discrepancies among and within countries in midwife quality, training, regulation and government policy awareness.

MDG Poverty Goals May Be Achieved, but Child Mortality is Not Improving

The millennium development goal (MDG) targets for extreme poverty and hunger are close to being met by two-thirds of developing countries the World Bank IMF said.

The number of people living in extreme poverty - on less than $1.25 per day - will drop to 883 million by 2015, from 1.4 billion in 2005 and 1.8 billion in 1990.

This goal reflects rapid economic growth in China and India. By 2015, only 4.8% of China's population will be in extreme poverty compared with 36% in sub-Saharan Africa.

Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, said "If the food price index rises by just another 10% ... another 10 million people will fall into extreme poverty where people live on less than $1.25 a day. And a 30% increase would add 34 million more people to the world's poor."

Zoellick's proposes a new code of conduct on export bans, improved information on the quality and quantity of food stocks, and preparing small stocks of humanitarian food in places like the Horn of Africa.

Many developing countries are close to meeting targets on primary education completion and eliminating the gender disparity in education, as well as access to safe drinking water. However, no low-income country has reduced mortality for under-fives sufficiently and they are unlikely to meet that MDG target.

Maternal and child mortality targets are doing poorly: 40% of developing countries are far from meeting health MDGs, despite all of the large amounts of aid put into the health sector in the past 10 years. And 45% of developing countries are far from meeting the notoriously neglected international targets on sanitation.

Delfin Go, the World Bank's lead economist said "spending has focused largely on increasing the quantity of services, while not paying enough attention to quality." Go suggests improving incentives for health workers by, for example, paying on the basis of their performance, as well as "strengthening institutions".

Counselling Key to Success of Male Cut

When Kenya launched its national voluntary male circumcision campaign in 2008, critics worried that it could lead to greater sexual risk-taking - but men in the western Nyanza Province seem to be disproving this theory.

For example, a 23-year-old said: "When I heard people say male circumcision helps in reducing HIV infection, I went there with the sole purpose that it would lessen the burden of having to use a condom. But after that, I have known a lot through the counselling I received; I use a condom every time with anybody ... I am not married so I am not going to trust anybody."

Kenya's programme aims to circumcise more than one million men by 2013, while doing HIV testing and compulsory counselling on HIV prevention, including messages about the importance of continued condom use, since circumcision does not offer full protection from the virus.

A small 2010 study by the University of Illinois in Kisumu found that most respondents - whether circumcised traditionally or in health facilities - reported either no behaviour change or improved protective behaviour, such as increased condom use and fewer sexual partners. Respondents understood that that male circumcision only provided partial protection against HIV.

Another study found that circumcised men did not engage in more risky sexual behaviours than uncircumcised men in the first year after the operation.

Most men in Kenya are circumcised as teenagers during rites of passage into adulthood that do not generally feature HIV education. One young man told the story about how, after he was circumcised during the traditional ceremony of western Kenya's Bukusu community, he was told that he was man enough to have sex with as many girls as he chose. But he heard it being talked about on the radio and everywhere that "circumcision cannot prevent you from HIV unless you use a condom or are faithful." Studies show that not all traditionally circumcised men heed the message about the HIV risk with unprotected sex. rw

Latin America: Families in Action Pays Mothers to Improve Health: Program Helps Poor Women Lift Families

Families in Action, an innovative social program partly funded by the World Bank pays 4,200 poor mothers in Tunja about $100 a month as long as they attend diet and hygiene classes, get their children to school and have them undergo medical exams.

Programs like Families in Action are offered in 19 Latin American countries, costing about $12 billion. Economist Ferdinando Regalia of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington believes that the schemes are a cost-effective means of reducing poverty and delivering health and education services.

The program helped one women leave her abusive husband, after attending "empowerment" classes where she learned she didn't have to tolerate his violent attacks and that she had a right to a look for a job. She is now pursuing a career as a hairdresser.

Besides the four required medical exams a year to check their weight and vision, as well as to test for bacterial infections, children ages 7 to 18 must be present for 80% of their school days, and adolescents must receive family planning classes or their mothers don't get paid.

An encouraging part of this program is that poor women in the program have become more politically active. And the program has helped save severely undernourished children.

The programs have grown to cover 112 million people in Latin America, or 19% of the region's population, according to United Nations figures. Columbia has 10.4 million people in the program, Brazil 51.6 million, and Mexico 23.2 million.

"The objectives are to lower poverty in the short term and raise human capital in the long term," said Helena Ribe, a World Bank economist.

There are concerns that the program may be discontinued if the region, now enjoying a commodities-fueled economic boom, suffers a downturn. However, the leaders may maintain the programs which are so popular and cost-effective to avoid political backlash.

Mobile Health Offers Hope to Patients in Africa

83% out of 122 countries surveyed use mobile phone technology for services that include free emergency calls, text messaging with pill reminders and health information and transmission of tests and lab results, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Up to 40 African countries are using mobile health services. Large countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya are leading the way. "The momentum is huge." ... "Millions of people in Africa still do not have access to any healthcare. With mobile technology they can at least have some," said the manager of WHO's special unit Global Observatory for eHealth.

In Africa, mobile penetration exceeds infrastructure development, including paved roads, and access to electricity and the internet.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Population Services International (PSI) supports a free hotline to complement its family planning campaigns. In Ghana, funding from a US university provides free mobile-to-mobile voice and text services between the 2,000 doctors who serve the country's 24 million population.

The Revolution We Need in Food Security and Population

by Marissa Mommaerts, Program Officer, Aspen Global Health and Development

This year brought the second global food price crisis in three years, with soaring food prices amongst bad weather, poor harvests, and political turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East. And, this same year, the planet's population is expected to reach seven billion, with most of the population growth occurring in countries least equipped to meet rising demands on agriculture and the environment.

The Aspen Institute's Global Health and Development program brought together three experts to discuss "The Revolution We Need in Food Security and Population." One out of every seven people worldwide already go hungry, with pressures on the food to double in the first half of the 21st century from changing diets from rising incomes and growth in population, noted an Glickman, executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program and former US Secretary of Agriculture.

Glickman said that volatility in the price of food commodities and the resulting food insecurity create conditions ripe for political instability. Food riots have already occured in 30 countries during the previous food crisis (2007-2008) and the role of anger at high food prices in the recent upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia. The US has revamped its efforts "to rebuild food self-sufficiency in the developing world," primarily through its new Feed the Future initiative.

National Geographic's current “7 Billion" series will look at issues such as food insecurity, population growth, land and water scarcity, and climate change in an integrated fashion. National Geographic's executive editor Dennis Dimick emphasized the importance of global investments in research and technology innovations to safeguard biodiversity, stave off pests and plant disease, and boost production.

All speakers at the program recognized that it is within our power to enable families to slow the rate of growth. Both Dimick and Roger-Mark De Souza, vice president of research and director of the Climate Program at Population Action International (PAI), agreed on the importance of women's reproductive choices in bolstering our prospects for sustainable development, including food security.

De Souza noted that the areas of the world with high population growth, projected agricultural decline, and low resilience to climate change also have high levels of unmet need for voluntary family planning. Over 215 million women worldwide want to use family planning services but don't have access to modern contraception. "What it comes down to, essentially, is that the choices that girls and young women make and are allowed to make will determine the future of humanity on this planet."

In the discussions, the linkages between food security, agriculture-led growth, and reproductive health choices began to emerge. Productivity increases and rising incomes for smallholder farmers (most of whom are women) could open up new prospects for family reproductive health decision-making and increasing the education participation of girls, a critical factor in their own future family planning choices.

To unleash the virtuous circles on food security and population, there must to be a conscious effort to broaden and deepen this conversation, which has barely begun.

17 Days of Action From Mother Earth to Mothers

The "Million for a Billion" campaign has action steps planned for each of the 17 days between Earth Day 2011 and Mother's Day 2011.

When women everywhere have access to family planning and reproductive health services, there are fewer unplanned births, fewer women die as a result of pregnancy-related causes, and more children survive infancy. That means: Less poverty; More primary education for girls (and boys); Greater gender equality and women's rights; Improved health for women and their families; Less stress on the environment and resources; and A healthier planet.

The United Nations Population Fund report last year said: Investing in sexual and reproductive health is one of the surest and most effective ways to promote equitable and sustainable development and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

2015 has been set as the target year for achieving universal access to reproductive health services. More than 200 million in the developing world who say they want to avoid a pregnancy are not currently using a modern method of birth control. Meeting their needs and the needs of the world's largest generation of young people is important to people and the planet.

To reach the target the United States and other donor nations urgently need to step up their support for family planning and reproductive health programs.

Help us spread the word over the next 17 days and beyond.

U.S.: Some Family-Planning Wisdom From Nixon

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona said, "If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does." Based on erroneous beliefs like his, the federal government almost shut down recently, not over fiscal policy but over concerns of taxpayers funding abortion.

In fact, abortion constitutes 3% of what Planned Parenthood does. 96% of the organization's services are for contraception, cancer screening, detection and treatment of sexually transmitted disease, and other health issues.

We all know that human beings have sex, and without proper use of contraceptives, sex will lead to unintended pregnancies. The average American woman desiring two children will spend five of her reproductive years pregnant, postpartum, or trying to become pregnant. That leaves three decades she will spend trying to avoid pregnancy.

Fortunately today's contraceptives are safe, plentiful, and used at least once by 99% of women who have had intercourse. Few people are on the other side.

Richard Nixon, when he was signing Title X into law in 1970, said: "It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family-planning assistance because of her economic condition. I believe therefore that we should establish as a national goal the provision of adequate family-planning services within the next five years to all those who want them but cannot afford them. This we have the capacity to do."

Four decades later some legislators are trying to cut off access to family-planning funding, holding the government hostage, under the guise of solving the financial crisis. It really boils down to the issue of abortion, legal since 1973. But the government does not fund abortions.

The Guttmacher Institute reports that every $1 the government invests in family planning saves taxpayers almost $4. But that includes only Medicaid coverage of prenatal visits, birth, and one year of infant checkups. For impoverished families, the amount will be many times more, on average.

CDC recently released a report saying the the rate of teenage pregnancy over the last 20 years has dropped about 40% to its lowest level in 70 years. The reduction is because of a decrease in sexual activity coupled with an increase in contraceptive use.

Yet, teenage girls are still having babies - 400,0000 annually, at a cost to taxpayers of $9 billion each year. If a teenager wants to remain in poverty, one of the fastest ways to do so is to have a baby. Funding for reproductive health has stalled while the need has only grown.

Publicly funded family-planning programs have resulted in almost two million unintended pregnancies were prevented in 2006, "which would have otherwise resulted in 860,000 births and 810,000 abortions."

Abused Village Women Speak Out for Justice in 'The Rape Capital of the World'

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN visit has raised hopes of legal action over sexual violence.

The women of Kampala village, where 35 were raped, still sleep in the forest at night, for fear the rapists will return. They gathered to tell their stories to a special U.N. representative on sexual crime in conflict.

The mass rape of more than 300 women, several men and children in villages deep in the forest of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at the beginning of August has renewed momentum to tackle the sexual violence.

The prosecutor of the international criminal court in The Hague is sending a team to investigate the mass rapes.

Callixte Mbarushimana, executive secretary of the FDLR, one of the rebel groups implicated, was recently arrested under an ICC warrant in Paris. The core of the FDLR are Hutus who fled Rwanda after participating in the genocide of Tutsis in 1994, and are accused of war crimes in the DRC.

The arrest was a "crucial step in efforts to prosecute the massive sexual crimes committed in the DRC".

Although a peace treaty in 2003 formally brought to an end the decade-long war, atrocities - primarily against women - have not subsided. Rape is a way of humiliating and cowing local populations who may be used as slave labour.

The 80 Indian soldiers assigned as UN peacekeepers are often as brutal and ill-disciplined as the militia and rebels they are fighting.

After the rapes the government of President Joseph Kabila announced a temporary ban on mining, which may be lifted later this week. The idea is that government agents should tax the miners rather than leave them to run a gamut of illegal roadblocks manned by rebels, militia and rogue soldiers. But this seems unlikely to stop the brutality. UN sources say battalions of government troops that have fanned out across the jungle. They are now preying on the population, looting and raping.

The US Congress has approved a financial reform law that requires US-listed companies to disclose whether their products contain "conflict minerals" from the DRC.

In Nyasi village the women say they will only feel safe if UN peacekeepers patrol more often and stay close. "We had the courage to speak out because we've had enough. We're like dying people, who are no longer afraid because they know they're at the end of their journey." rw

Global Data Show That Choice is Essential to Equality and Equality is Essential to a Civil Society

Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Nicholas Kristof, in a New York Times opEd column - The Birth Control Solution - claimed that if humans are serious about answering problems like climate change, resource shortages, and armed conflicts that seem ever ready to unravel civil society, we need to get serious about family planning.

Kristof says that fast growing countries like Afghanistan and Yemen have youth bulges that makes them more prone to conflict and terrorism. Booming populations increase world poverty and put a strain on virgin forests. He noted: "Some studies have suggested that a simple way to reduce carbon emissions in the year 2100 is to curb population growth today."

"Overpopulation" has a spotted history. Author Michelle Goldberg claims that a lot of early support for birth control in developing countries came from those less concerned about women's rights than about stemming the spread of communism. Also, a lot of Western eco-anxiety is unfairly focused on developing countries in Asia and Africa. High fertility rates in those countries would not be such a concern if their inhabitants did not aspire to the comparatively extravagant lifestyles we are modeling right here in the U.S. Ten billion is a sustainable population for Earth, but not if everyone lives like the average American.

The key to success with family planning programs lies in empowering women. According to the Population Institute, "It's no coincidence that population growth rates are generally fastest in those nations where girls are taken out of school at an early age, the status of women is low, violence against women is high, and reproductive rights are not respected."

Gender equality must be addressed in order to lower high birth rates. But if health care (including reproductive health care) and reproductive rights are lacking, gender equality cannot be achieved.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has published a map of the world that color codes every country according to the status of its abortion laws. Click here http://reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/AbortionMap_2011.pdf to see it for yourself. Red-colored countries have laws that restrict abortion to save the woman's life or prohibits it altogether, Green-colored countries have not abortion restrictions as to reason given.

Looking at the map, you can see that anti-choice countries are usually the same as the poor, conflict-prone, non-modern while the pro-choice countries are usually the richer, more peaceful, modern countries.

It is also interesting to compare this map to the UN's Gender Inequality Index, which can be found here: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Table4_reprint.pdf . This index measures factors for each country such as maternal mortality, teen pregnancy rate, contraceptive use, antenatal care, percentage of births attended by a skilled professional, and the levels of female education, employment, and government participation.

The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Norway are the top five countries with the lowest inequality - all "green" pro-choice countries. Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Mali, and Afghanistan are the countries with lower rankings have more inequality - all "red" anti-choice countries.

While there are exceptions, the rule is that women in pro-choice countries have far more equality on average. In fact, the “green countries" have an average inequality index of 0.402 versus 0.598 for “red countries." Pregnant women are 450% more likely to die in anti-choice countries.

**It should be noted that an estimated 5,000 women a year - those who can afford it - travel from Ireland to other countries for abortion services, and that women who do have abortions are entitled to free (state-funded) post-procedure counseling and follow-up medical care in their own country when they return. It should also be noted the UN report shows Ireland's contraceptive use at an astonishingly high rate of 89%, higher than any other country with figures available, including Norway (88%).

China Tones Down Family Planning Slogans, Enforcement

Ten years ago harsh-sounding family planning slogans could be seen painted on the sides of buildings. "One more baby means one more tomb" and "first baby delivered, litigation imposed after the second, and the third and fourth killed!" were used on the signs to deter parents from having additional children after the adoption of China's one-child policy.

Today China's National Population and Family Planning Commission is working to replace the phrases with kinder, gentler suggestions. The new slogans will appeal to people's positive emotions and express humanity while using concise, standardized language.

The slogans started out "relatively mild" when the one-child policy was implemented in 1979, saying things like: "one child is fairly adequate, two are just enough and three are excessive."

Family planning efforts encountered great obstacles in the countryside during the 1980s and 1990s because rural families tended to have more children when the cost of raising a child was low. Authorities resored to harsh and illicit means to crack down on excess births. Teams of anonymous thugs were hired to confiscate livestock and food from families who violated the policy, with some of the families even held in detention..

In 1995 the National Population and Family Planning Commission banned the practice of detaining and torturing families with excess children, as well as the practices of confiscating their property and levying nonexistent fines.

Now there is a tendency to reward families that have strictly followed population control policies. For example, households with a single child or two female children receive cash grants, with their children entitled to receive free insurance and education.

In one Province family planning authorities provide free services such as premarital counseling, reproductive risk assessments, parental training classes for parents-to-be and early education for children under three years of age.

In 2007, the slogans included warmer-sounding sentiments such as "the Mother Earth is too tired to sustain more children" and "both boys and girls are in their parents' hearts."

Ireland: Access to Contraceptives for Teenagers Proposed in Report

The Law Reform Commission has proposed that teenagers aged 16 or 17 should have access to contraception and be entitled to confidentiality - they should be able to consent to and refuse medical treatment subject to certain conditions. The age of consent for sex is 17.

A child aged 14-16 could, subject to certain requirements, be regarded as capable of consenting to healthcare provided he or she had the capacity to understand the nature and consequences of the treatment.

The requirements include that the medical practitioner should encourage the child to inform his or her parents or guardians.

In the case of children aged 12-14, treatment should be available at their request, but it would be mandatory for the medical practitioner to notify the child's parents.

Merry Winter Solstice

I feel the Catholic Church is a major cause of the population explosion. We have added 5,000,000,000 more people to our small crowded planet since I was born. Ignoring this problem will not make it go away.

The Pope has no objection to keeping people alive as long as possible and with our medical advances this has caused the average life expectancy to double in the past century. This is the basic cause of the population explosion. If everyone died at 40 (on average) like they did in 1900 instead of living to be 80 (on average) there would be no population explosion. The Pope is opposed to reducing the birth rate with contraception-----condoms, IUD's, Plan B, the pill, emergency contraception, vasectomies, tubal ligation, diaphram etc.------WHY??

Europe has a birth rate equal to the death rate. Even Italy which is 97% Catholic has a birth rate so low they are not even replacing themselves and the government will give women a bonus to have a second child. My goal is to have all females do what the Italian women are doing to achieve such a low birth rate-------abstinence only?------believe that & I have a bridge to sell you.

It took Homo sapiens 2 million of years of evolution to reach our first billion in about 1800 but only about a century to add the second billion in 1925 (my birth year). We have now "exploded" to almost 7 billion. The Catholic Church does not object to prolonging life but officially objects to contraception. An example of this is the group of about 15 that pray across the street from Planned Parenthood in Santa Maria on abortion days----they are opposed to not only abortion (I am too) but are opposed to contraception & vasectomies as well.

Contraception was against the law prior to the activism of Margaret Sanger starting in 1927. She was arrested innumerable times and was constantly harassed. She did the ground work that established Planned Parenthood Federation with clinics throughout America. This gave women control over their reproduction resulting in equal status to the male. The average age of first intercourse in America is about 17 (or lower). How old were you?

The goal of Planned Parenthood (and mine) is for every baby to be born wanted, planned and loved. It is tragic that over half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended (accidents). My favorite bumper-sticker is: MAKE LOVE NOT BABIES.

Burkina Faso: Women's Economic Empowerment Key to Girls' Education

A new government program to keep girls in school by supporting income-generating activities for their mothers is showing success in Burkina Faso, where poverty and cultural values still deprive many girls of an education.

Often, even having to buy notebooks and pens is enough to stop a child from going to school and enough to get a girl married off to a husband.

The 300 chapter Association of Mothers Who Teach (AME) was created to consolidate the success of a 2007 campaign to raise awareness of the importance of girls' education.

Mothers are encouraged to support schools because they are the ones who keep the girls at home to help with economic and domestic activities.

The school completion rate in Burkina Faso is among the lowest on the continent, especially for girls. Only 42% of students who enter grade one complete their primary education; for girls, it is 37.

In the country's northern Sahel region, where the ministry focuses its outreach activities, just 18% of girls complete their education.

"Getting girls to stay in school is the challenge, especially in the context of arranged marriages. We know that if the wife can read, it's a first battle won for girls' education," said one expert.

The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) backs income-generating activities such as the sale of milk, and raising goats and sheep, of which a portion is reinvested in the children's education. For example, one AME bought lamps and oil, thus enabling poorer students to study at night.

In one AME area, the enrollment rate for girls ispresently 66%, compared to just 15% in 2003.

If the AME members suspect a plan for an arranged marriage, they will report the matter to the school principal very quietly and they take many discreet actions to prevent early or forced marriages.

Men who challenge the women in the AME, are told: "It not only helps girls themselves if they attend school, but it can help their future husbands one day; this is so fathers won't give their daughters away in early marriage when they have money problems."

World Must Wake Up to the Coming Crisis in the Sahel

There is a zone of human pain in the failed, and failing states along the Sahel on the edge of the Sahara desert, and across to Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, says Professor Malcolm Potts.

Rapid population growth, global warming, poor governance and a hideous mistreatment of women are combining in a perfect storm which could lead to unprecedented levels of environmental stress, starvation, escalating conflict and massive waves of migration. The scale of these problems goes beyond the usual response to a potential humanitarian disaster. Unless strong action is taken, the catastrophe now unfolding in the Sahel has the potential to kill as many tens of millions of people.

This is a global problem and it needs a global understanding and a global response. New international strategies need to be built about food security, family planning, gender equity and governance that have major geopolitical implications for the rest of the twenty-first century. A proper response will require billions of dollars , which would likely come primarily from the World Bank, regional development banks and other traditional donors.

Today's extremes of drought, caused by climate change, could become averages by 2050. Overgrazing, poor agricultural practices, lack of infrastructure and uneven governance could result in inefficient use of natural resources including soil, water and ecosystem-based services. Soil erosion and destruction of trees for firewood are about to collide with climate change turning serious problems into a catastrophe.

From October to May there is no rain and temperatures can exceed 120° Fahrenheit (49° C). Tremendous dust storms cover huge areas of the Sahel and Northern Nigeria. Climate change will make a bad situation worse. Droughts that used to occur every 10 years are already happening every five and they will be interspersed with torrential downpours leading to flash floods that wash away homes and crops.

Already agricultural output cannot keep pace with population growth. The UN Environment Programme sees the Sahel as "heading towards an environmental disaster" and feeding tens of millions of people as "mission impossible."

44% of children in Niger are stunted and face a life-long penalty in stunted growth and inhibited brain development if they survive.

The third largest city in Kenya, after Nairobi and Mombasa is now a refugee camp of drought victims in the north. It was built for 400,000 refugees, but every day an additional 1,500 women and children, fleeing from drought in Somalia and Ethiopia, arrive.

The worst drought in 60 years is hitting the Horn of Africa; 13 million people are already hungry. "750,000 could die in the next six months unless aid efforts were scaled up" says the New York Times. But this is just a sign of things to come. We must recognize the nature and the scale of the problem and focus on outcomes not process.

50 million people live in the Sahel. In Niger population is projected by the UN to rise from 16 million today to almost 60 million or possibly even higher in 2050 and an implausible 139 million by 2100 million, implausible since death rates may rise due to starvation or disease.

Burkina Faso is projected to go from 16 to almost 50 million people by 2050, Chad from 11 to almost 30 million. Mali is projected to more than double from 15 to 35 million and Somalia from under 10 to over 20 million.

Until recently, the UN's World Population estimates assumed that most countries would reach 2.05 children per women by 2050, and that least developed countries would fall to 2.41, but demographers have recently accepted that birth rates in the high fertility countries will not reach replacement level fertility any time soon. The highest world projection for the end of the century is now 15.8 billion ( the lowest 6.2 million) at the century's end. These few high fertility countries (averaging from 4 to over 7 children per woman) with a total population of 1.2 billion today, are projected to be the largest population block in the world by 2100.

Delay in raising the age of marriage and in instituting family planning will be as lethal in a country like Niger, as was the delay in instituting HIV prevention in Africa in the 1980s. Today in Niger, only one in 1000 women completes secondary education. In the Sahlel, few people are educated, making non-agricultural employment virtually impossible. Few girls enter secondary school and virtually none complete it.

Unless investments are made today in education, especially for girls, and in family planning in these high fertility regions then the world will become even more divided than it is today between rich and poor and between stable democratic nations and failed states. The Sahel presents the most immediate, and also the most easy to document, set of problems.

We must make family planning easy to obtain. In the case of family planning we have half a century of robust evidence of what works. We must meet the unmet need for family planning. Even failed states have markets than can be tapped into. We must knock down uninformed medical barriers to family planning. We must recognize how common misinformation is leading women to believe family planning is dangerous.

In Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot, in refugee camps along the Thai border, neither UNICEF nor Doctors Without Borders were supplying contraception in the camps. But when this was done by another NGO, use of contraceptives jumped from zero to 52% of married women in one month.

Sahlel countries see a very high rate of child marriage. Increasing the age of marriage by five years reduces population growth by 15 to 20%, according to demographers. High fertility countries will not slow population growth rate until the average age of the first birth is raised. In Niger, the average age of marriage is under 16.

Under-age girls are married off to older men every day. Most child brides either never go to school, or drop out when they marry. Compared with mature women, these girls are twice as likely to be beaten by their husbands and five times as likely to die in childbirth.

Poor soils and unpredictable weather are outside human control. We don't know how to ameliorate corruption in contemporary governments. Subsidies to American farmers depress African markets unfairly, but they are unlikely to change soon. But addressing population through access to family planning, eliminating forced marriage for young girls and raising the age of the first birth have more promising solutions.

In a project involving a polygamous society on the border with Niger, where the average aged of marriage is 14.5, we found that a small educational grant of $196, spread over six years, had resulted in between 82% and 92% of girls remaining in school.

We need to apply funds to pilot projects, such as the success keeping girls in school, on a nation-wide scale. We may need careful, random control trials to show that cash transfers work.

Shale Natural-Gas Depletion

Note: there are a lot of numbers being thrown around on this topic, depending on who you ask. Please read the article through before you start quoting anything.

Conventional gas production peaked in the 1970's in the United States. New supply from unconventional tight gas (and some coal-bed methane), along with imports, filled the supply/demand gap. The "new" technology (horizontal drilling & hydraulic fracturing) combined with rising price boosts recoverable reserves over time.

If you add up the mean values for Traditional Gas Resources, which includes shale gas, and Coal Bed Methane, you get the 1,836 Tcf (trillions of cubic feet) of potential resources. If you throw in the EIA's proved reserves, the total resources are 2,074 Tcf in the Lower 48 and Alaska. This represents the ‘technically recoverable' gas resource potential of the U.S. At current consumption rates, the new total represents about 100 years of supply. If speculative resources (500 Tcf) are excluded, we would still have about 75 years of supply.

There has been a lot of promotion of the newly-found natural gas:

The (T. Boone) Pickens Plan promotes using natural gas to replace liquid fuels in transportation, especially as a replacement for diesel in long-haul trucking. The PGC (Potential Gas Committee) reports say that "the 2,074 trillion cubic feet of domestic natural gas reserves cited in the study is the equivalent of nearly 350 billion barrels of oil, about the same as Saudi Arabia's oil reserves." But ASPO-USA commentator Tom Standing said it would take decades build out the supply chain (e.g. swap petroleum gas stations for natural gas stations). The Pickens Plan is currently dead in the water.

Dr. Joseph Romm of the influential Center for American Progress proposes to use natural gas to ramp up under-utilized natural gas electrical power generation capacity to replace base-load coal. We now have the makings of a de facto moratorium on coal. We seem to be unwilling to build new nuclear capacity. It is theoretically possible for wind to provide 20% of our electricity by 2030, but there are many practical, economic & political barriers to success. Thus it would behoove us to switch to natural gas at large-scales if we want to maintain a functioning electricity grid 10-15 years from now.

There is little reason to doubt that the potential natural gas resource base in the United States is very large. The hidden problem with such estimates relates to whether the gas is economic to produce.

The Tristone Capital study (October, 2008, described in Oil & Gas Journal, shows increased shale gas production with a risked estimate out to 2018, from analysis of nine US and Canada shale gas plays. These are risked production additions — "the study expects companies ultimately to recover from these resources 261 Tcf of gas, based on various risk factors applied and a long-term average gas price of $8.50/MMbtu. Without the risk factors, Tristone Capital says these shales have a 743-Tcf recovery potential."

Despite the likelihood that we will have low or average gas prices over the next few years due to the recession and oversupply, the market share of shale gas grows and grows. This forecast looks like a high-wire act that defies not only gravity, but also the laws of supply & demand. One wonders what the minimum price is that makes shale gas unprofitable. $4.50/Mcf (millions of cubic feet)? $3.50/Mcf?

Art Berman, a Houston geologist and columnist at World Oil Magazine, does not believe most shale gas wells are economic unless operator costs go down, gas prices rise sharply, and high average prices are sustained. Talking about the Haynesville shale site, he says— "The play is marginally commercial today for operators with favorable hedge positions, but not commercial based on cost and price fundamentals. At current prices, the netback of $3.25/mcf barely covers operating costs, so no Haynesville well is economic and rates and reserves simply do not matter.

Berman's analysis of the Barnett: "Shale gas is not commercial at any 'reasonable' price because the costs are too high. ... The average per-well EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) is about 0.6 Bcf (billions of cubic fee) —pathetic!"

Berman says he has looked at the financial documents filed with the SEC of most of the major shale players (Chesapeake, Petrohawk, Range Resources, etc.) "they're all taking a bath financially but put on a brave face, and have huge debt. As long as their stock price is good, the executives get rich so why do they care? The analyst community is so naive about true costs that they believe the propaganda."

The frac costs keep increasing because operators are now commonly using 10-12-stage fracs that cost millions. The extra cost may only accomplish a rate acceleration and not an increase in reserves. In the Barnett Shale, the average horizontally drilled and fractured wells only have approximately 25% more reserves than vertical wells but 3 times the cost! This talk about lowering operating cost and increasing reserves is more propaganda, and most cost benefit is more than negatively compensated by more interest expense on debt.

From the L. David Roper website http://www.roperld.com/science/minerals/shalegas.htm

Please go to this website to see the charts.

Shale-gas recoverable reserves have been estimated at 264 Tcf. Shale natural gas adds a short large blip to the natural-gas extraction for the United States. It could be reduced in size and stretched out over a larger time interval, but I doubt it will be. The U.S. will probably extract and use it as fast as possible.

I could not find any data for shale-gas extraction for the world. Since the U.S. is way ahead of other nations in this effort, I assume that the extraction-rate data for the world is essentially the same as for the U.S.

I also assume that the extractable reserves for the U.S. is 500 Tcf and that the extracable reserves for the world is the ratio of the Earth land area to the U.S. land area (~16) times 500 Tcf = ~8000 Tcf.

Adding the 8000-Tcf-reserves shale gas to the conventional natural-gas depletion curve for the World adds just a short large blip to the natural-gas extraction for the World. It could be reduced in size and stretched out over a larger time interval, but I doubt it will be. The world will probably extract and use it as fast as possible.

Trade-secret chemicals are inserted into the shale formations to fractionate ("fracking") the formation into cracks for the gas to seep through to the well pipe. There is strong indications that the fracking allows the gas to seep up into the water table, contamination wells for human use.

There is very little information about what the chemicals used might be doing to the environment.

A documentary film, Gasland, has been made about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas. Another documentary, Shale Gas and America's Future, gives great detail about the drilling and fracking process and discusses the environmental problems. The TV program 60 minutes showed a program about fracking.

There is an effort in the Congress to regulate the gas companies such that they have to disclose the chemicals used in fracking.

From Wikipedia:

A study by Cornell University professor Robert W. Howarth in 2010 finds that, once methane leak impacts are included, the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of shale gas would be worse than those of coal and fuel oil. Methane is by far the major component of natural gas, and it is a powerful greenhouse gas: 25-times more powerful than is CO2 per molecule in the atmosphere. However, this report has been discredited as being only a preliminary study which has not gone through the p

The flaw allows cracks, leaks and corrosion to go undetected - and that saves the industry billions of dollars in pipe replacements. But pipes with cracks and leaks can explode - and kill.

Recently, President Obama refused to issue a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, but invited its owner, Trans-Canada, to re-apply. The GOP claims that that slowing the Canada-to-Houston pipe for a full safety review is a jobs killer.

But it's the Pipeline that's the killer. On September 9, 2010, a gas pipeline exploded, incinerating 13-year-old Janessa Greig, her mom and six others. An untampered PIG would have caught the bad welds in the old pipe.

Trans-Canada says that Keystone XL won't contaminate the Ogallala Aquifer, the Plains states' crucial water source. Keystone's permit application boasts that we can rely on XL's "full pigging capability."

Last summer, an ExxonMobil pipeline burst and poisoned parts of the Yellowstone River - only months after a PIG had been installed.

New gas fields opened by hydraulic fracking will require over 100,000 miles of new transmission pipe.

Family Planning as a Pro-life Cause

Kanyere, 35, has had 10 children, eight of whom have survived. She bleed a lot after the last birth and said "If I give birth again, I could die," as she learned from her doctor, who gaver her a tubal ligation (sterilization).

In this part of Congo, the complications of childbirth are as dangerous as the militias in the countryside. Each birth raises the odds of a hemorrhage, infection or rupture. Those odds increase dramatically when births come early in life, or late in life, or in rapid succession. In Congo, almost one in five deaths of women during childbearing years is due to maternal causes.

In a program organized by Heal Africa, about 6,000 women of Bweremana contribute the equivalent of 20 cents each Sunday to a common fund. When it is their time to give birth, the fund becomes a loan to pay transportation and hospital fees. The women tend a common vegetable garden to help with income and nutrition. And the group encourages family planning.

While in the U.S. the words "family planning" wave a red flag, in places such as Bweremana, family planning is undeniably pro-life. When births are spaced more than 24 months apart, both mothers and children are dramatically more likely to survive. Family planning results not only in fewer births, but in fewer at-risk births, including those early and late in a woman's fertility. When contraceptive prevalence is low, about 70% of all births involve serious risk. When prevalence is high, the figure is 35%.

According to a 2009 Gallup poll, more than 90% of American evangelicals believe that hormonal and barrier methods of contraception are morally acceptable for adults. Children are gifts from God, but this does not require the collection of as many gifts as biologically possible.

In Congo, while both the pill and condoms are generally available in larger cities such as Goma, access is limited in rural districts. Determining the pace of reproduction is often a male prerogative instead of a shared decision.

Nepal: Peer Education Effective

Peer education has been effective in school level in a district of Nepal after the schools started class on sex and reproductive health. The students have developed their habit to speak openly in this issue. Earlier, students, especially the girls used to hesitate to talk to people on the sex related topics.

Students have learned many things about HIV- AIDS and sex related issues through the peer education. They take active participation in the group discussion on reproductive health and sex related issues.

Earlier, people used to feel shy and hide their health problems. "Such an attitude has changed. People openly inform health workers about their diseases," said a local teacher. rw

Italy;: Development: Our Youth, Their Future

Estimates indicate that one in five young people survive on less than a dollar per day. Young people aged 15 to 24 are a quarter of the world's working population but half are unemployed.

This disparity is particularly pronounced in developing and least developed countries, where around 51 percent of the combined population is below the age of 25.

The U.N.'s MDGs set a global agenda to end extreme poverty, with a focus on lower income countries with large youth populations.

The main reason that developing countries cite for not having youth delegates is the costs of sending someone to New York for several weeks. Visa regulations are often an issue. In some cases, it is due to a distrust of youth.

Part of the U.N. Secretariat organises activities and assists the General Assembly in creating policies on youth development.

In 1981, the General Assembly adopted a resolution for the first time officially encouraging member states to include youth delegates in their national delegations. Priority issues include education, employment, hunger and poverty, health and environment.

More than 113 million children were denied access to primary education and more than 150 million had never completed it. Girls are particularly excluded from primary education.

Another 250 million children aged five to 14 in the developing world cannot go to school because they are forced to work.

Poverty is a global epidemic, and young people are at risk. But youth participate more effectively in UN deliberations on issues of sustainable development and are effective at lobbying governments for stronger commitments.

They are working at the grassroots level and contributing to the MDGs targets. "If we want the MDGs fulfilled everyone can make their contribution in some way and this is the message I would like to pass to young people." rw

Youth Education Network Launched in Oman

The Youth Peer Education Network (Y-Peer) works in the areas of adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Oman, with the help of Oman's Scouts and Guides. After completion of this course and receiving his certificate of completion, Al Alawi was sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a 10-day workshop to prepare him as a Y-Peer focal point for Oman.

He then trained five male and six female participants in peer education. The workshop trained trainers to teach fellow youth community members the correct facts on reproductive health, HIV, and other health areas. The sessions at the workshop included team presentations on specific topics, theatrical representations of birth spacing, HIV, and learning how to say 'no'. Discussions followed all exercises with the trainer acting as the facilitator and encouraging debate.

There was a positive response from the participants. Most youth do not feel comfortable talking to their elders on the matter, or receiving the information out of shame or taboo. The Y-Peer network hopes to guide the youth from grassroots level, within the most vulnerable age groups, in all issues related to reproductive health. rw

Congo, Democratic Republic of the;: HIV Prevalence Rate Reaches 5.4 Pct Among Uneducated Youths

HIV among young Congolese with no schooling is 5.4%. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in Congo show a high HIV risk among young people. UNFPA said that half of all new cases of HIV is found among youths between 15 and 24.

The spread of DTD's among young women is faster than any other group and most do not even know they are infected, how HIV is transmitted or how to avoid it.

Someone must give the youths the training and information they need. It is important that the government concentrate their action on the youths. rw

Africa;: HIV Pregnancies Decrease in 2006

A survey for 2006 has shown a decrease in HIV among pregnant woman visiting public health facilities. The decline in the under 20 age group from 15.9% in 2005 to 13.7% in 2006 implies a possible reduction in new infections. The young are encouraged to continue taking care of their health.

The National Youth Health Indaba aims to get young people involved in their own lives and their communities.

Youth are urged to deal with the challenge of alcohol and substance abuse. Of the 1,279 people currently employed at the national department, 731 were young people between 19 and 35. More than 57% of the full-time staff at the national department of health is made up of young people. rw

Vietnam;: Ministry Introduces New Model to Address Teen Health, Wellness Issues

Faced with an increasing number of teenage health problems the Vietnamese Ministry of Health is launching a medical-advice programme for adolescents.

Teenagers will be able to get advice on health and nutrition, HIV/AIDS-prevention, and receive medical check-ups. The programme will free.

Advice centres will be set up in hospitals, reproductive health centres, HIV-prevention centres, youth centres, cultural houses and in schools.

The main threats to teen-agers come from road accidents, alcohol abuse, drugs, HIV, domestic violence and sexual abuse.

There are currently just 50 health centres specifically for teenagers.

State-owned health centres are equipped with modern facilities and well-trained doctors, but are often inundated with patients. A survey revealed that a large number of young adults had a poor understanding of sexual and reproductive health.

Calls usually concern safe contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. Only a tiny proportion of teenagers called the hotline or saught advice at existing health centres. rw

Nepal;: Projects on Youths in Shadow: RHIYA

In the Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia (RHIYA) program, 8,848 people have been trained to provide youth-friendly reproductive health services. There are 55 centres and 92 information centres in 18 districts of the country. The programme has reached to 71.9% of youths and 39% of the adolescents. The programme has empowered women, and those subjected to violence and have become more independent when it comes to decision making. The RHIYA has been providing youth-friendly services, training educators to share information about reproductive health with their peers, creating awareness on HIV/AIDs, gender-based violence and girl trafficking.

However, most of the important programmes in Nepal targeted to youths are not getting priority due to focus on assembly elections. The termination of the RHIYA program has affected programmes with proven track record of benefiting the youths in case of violence. The (EU) has shifted its priority to education and peace process.

The EU contributed 80% of funding with 10% from UNFPA and the seven partner NGOs.

The RHIYA's three-year term ended in 2006. The government should incorporate such programmes and execute laws that advocate the rights of the youths. Youths could have their say in decision-making. Gender-based violence is rooted in the society in one or another form.

Programme managers are skeptical about the programme, as RHIYA would not be there to monitor it. They also demanded that the government give continuity to such programmes as youths comprise one third of the population. rw

Kenya: Microfinance: Women Pull Together Against Poverty

39 women in the Kiambu District of Central Kenya joined together to form the Consolata Self Help Group, which was linked with a microfinance institution known as the Pamoja Women Development Program (PAWDEP).

Each member of the Consolata group was to put the equivalent of $2.50 into a common kitty each month. Members presenting a workable business idea can then borrow money from the combined savings at an interest rate of 5%; the loan is repayable at the end of three months.

Members' loans are limited to two and a half times the capital they have accumulated in savings with the group; for example, a member who has accumulated $100 in savings can take out a loan of $250. In this way 40% of the loan is guaranteed against money the borrower herself has put into the scheme if she defaults.

Esther, a participant in the program, is the proprietor of a dairy project with 15 cows, delivering 100 litres of milk daily to the nearby milk collection centre in her home village.

After starting with one cow, she repaid the first loan from the proceeds of selling milk and then borrowed 625 dollars to buy a second cow. Milk sales again covered repayment, and a series of larger loans from the Consolata group steadily built her operations.

The other members of the Consolata group have experienced similar rapid growth, establishing small businesses or farming.

PAWDEP currently works with savings schemes whose combined membership totals 48,000 women in the Central, Eastern, Rift Valley and Nairobi provinces of Kenya. There are several similar institutions in Kenya, helping women and youth with enhanced access to credit.

A 2010 report published by international development charity ActionAid - "Fertile Ground: How Governments and Donors Can Halve Hunger" - based on data gathered in Kenya, Uganda and Malawi - suggests that this kind of support for women small-scale farmers could halve hunger on the African continent by 2015.

While many African women would find the benefits of enhanced access to credit limited by legal and traditional patterns of land tenure, domestic power relations; rural men and women alike also struggle to overcome weak infrastructure that denies them water, access to markets, or even sound advice and agricultural technologies -- microfinance still contributes powerfully to making the most of resources available to rural people.

Microfinance Institutions Prefer Lending to Women

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) prefer to give loans to women and their cooperatives because they are trustworthy in loan repayments compared to men, enabling them to do business better.

With their increasing responsibilities in their families, women have exhibited a culture of trustworthy and diversification of doing multi businesses to raise enough income, says the MFI Vision Finance Company, which provides financial and non-financial services to the economically productive poor Rwandans especially women.

"Women are trustworthy clients; they know how to use the loans effectively by investing in many businesses. When they are in cooperatives the trust is much stronger that you don't get worried of defaulters."

No Peak Oil Yet? the Limits of the Hubbert Model

The Hubbert model says that, within a reasonably large region, oil production should follow a bell shaped curve. When the model is applied to worldwide oil production, the maximum level of production is called "peak oil." Peak oil has been often predicted to occur within the first decade of the 21st century, however, up to now, we are not seeing a well defined peak but, rather, a plateau that has been going on from 2004.

We may expect the production plateau to keep going as long as the economy can transfer to oil extraction resources from other industrial sectors.

If we consider production of "all liquids," that is if we include such sources of liquid hydrocarbons as natural gas liquids (NGL), biofuels, tar sands and others, it is hard to detect a peak of any kind. Production has been oscillating around an approximately constant - or perhaps slightly increasing - plateau for at least 5 years by now.

A barrel of NGL or of biofuel contains less energy than a barrel of conventional crude oil. So, in terms of energy, production may well be declining even in terms of "all liquids".

We are not seeing a well defined peak, at least for the "all liquids" case.

Natural gas production in the US peaked around 1973, as was predicted, but it did not significantly decline afterwards. Instead, it oscillated around a plateau and, in recent times, it has exceeded the 1973 peak. A completely different case is that of crude oil in the US, where the post-peak decline is compatible with the Hubbert model.

If world oil production will behave like crude oil in the US, it will soon decline. If, instead, it will behave like natural gas in the US, it might keep going at the present levels for a long time, perhaps decades.

If the extractive industry reinvests an approximately constant fraction of the energy it produces into new extraction facilities, it can grow exponentially, at least for a while. However, the industry tends to extract first the, "easy", high EROEI, resources. With time, it must move to progressively more difficult. With less energy available for extraction, the growth of production slows down. Eventually, production peaks and then declines. If these considerations are set in mathematical form, the result is the bell shaped curve.

The economy is more complex than that and the response of demand to price increases depends on a property that economist call "elasticity." Normally, higher prices reduce demand, but a commodity may be so crucially needed that demand remains high even for high prices. Crude oil and other fossil fuels are so vitally necessary to the economy that the vagaries of oil prices during the past few years have had only a small effect on the production curve.

If there were a stable demand coupled with high prices, the industry could maintain its profits and keep investing in new production facilities, even of high cost resources. In practice, the extractive sector takes energy and resources from other sectors of the economy and uses it to extract low EROEI resources. In this case, you can't expect to see a bell shaped production curve any longer.

Oil can be imported from overseas by tanker. Gas, instead, needs to be liquefied at low temperatures and that requires special facilities, it also requires special ships for transporting and more - all that is very expensive. Thus, after the national peak, in 1971, the cheapest route for the US economy to obtain oil was to import it from overseas and, hence, there was no need of an effort to develop high cost resources within the national borders.

The natural gas industry, on the other hand, since 1973 invested into developing new domestic resources, even expensive ones. Recently the industry has resor

Ethiopian poster showing a little girl who is sad that she cannot go to school while some of her friends are allowed. She is taking care of her brother or sister, while others must gather firewood or tend the sheep.

Rush for Land a Wake-up Call for Poorer Countries, Report Says

December 14, 2012   Reuters

More than 200m hectares of land in the global south - over eight times the size of the UK - have been sold or leased between 2000 and 2010, according to a study published by the International Land Coalition.

Population growth, the increasing consumption of a global elite, and an international legal system skewed in favour of large scale investors are fuelling a worldwide rush for land that is unfolding faster than previously thought and is likely to continue.

The food price crisis of 2007-08 may have triggered a boom in international land deals, however "a much broader set of factors - linked to population growth and the rise of emerging economies - is raising the prospect of "a new era in the struggle for, and control over, land in many areas of the global south", the study argues.

The large land acquisitions may marginalise rural communities and jeopardise the future of family farming in favour of big industrial projects. Enthusiasm for industrial-scale agriculture continues to sideline small farmers.

Suprises uncovered by the study: rich national investors play a much larger role than previously thought, food is not the main focus of these deals, and African governments are not the only ones signing away large tracts of land.

Overall, about 40% of land acquired over the last decade is for biofuel production, 25% is for food crops and another 27% for mining, tourism, industry and forestry.

However, in Africa, 66% of land deals are intended for biofuel production, compared with 15% for food crops.

in south-east Asia, 75% of reported land deals have been struck by regional players, while in Africa, South African investors have acquired an estimated 40.7m hectares since 2009.

The IMF, the World Bank and a number of government aid agencies are pressuring developing countries to attract and legally protect foreign investment in agriculture and extractive industries,and to set up sophisticated specialised agencies to promote investment opportunities and offering benefits such as tax breaks and low prices, said the report.

USAID is hosting an international conference to promote foreign investment in South Sudan. Almost 9% of South Sudan's land had already been leased or bought by investors prior to the country's independence in July this year.

There are few effective international mechanisms exist to safeguard the rights of the rural poor. Meanwhile, the common lack of formal, legal titles to land is heightening the vulnerability of rural communities.

Lorenzo Cotula, of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development said that " poor communities need to have "stronger rights over the land they have lived on for generations."

The G20 summit in Seoul last year encouraged all countries and companies to uphold a set of principles for responsible agricultural investment, developed by the UN and the World Bank But such agreements are little more than window-dressing.

Residents of Mukaya Payam, in South Sudan's Central Equatoria state, launched a campaign in August against what would have been the country's largest land deal - a 49-year lease of 600,000 hectares by an American company. In Selingue, in southern Mali, hundreds of smallholder farmers and civil society activists came together for the first international farmers' conference to tackle the global rush for land.

Karen Gaia says: so sad to hear about this situation. Especmessage not HIV/STDs. 518-HIV-TEST." Within an hour, the message had been sent to nearly 450 phones.

Birth Rate Plummets in Brazil

December 30, 2011   Washington Post

Across Latin America fertility rates plummeted, even though abortion is illegal, the Catholic Church opposes birth control and government-run family planning is rare.

Migration to the cities, the expansion of the female workforce, better health care and the example of the small, affluent families portrayed on the region's popular soap operas have contributed to such a fast demographic shift that it caught social scientists by surprise. The number of children per woman when from 6 in 1960 to 2.3 by 2010.

Brazil has been particularly fascinating for demographers, it's fertility rate falling lower than in any other Latin American country except Cuba, which has state-sponsored family planning and legalized abortion. With a population of almost 200 million, there is a great gap between rich and poor, although millions have joined the middle class during Brazil's recent economic expansion.

The country's fertility rate has fallen from 6.15 children per woman in 1960 to less than 1.9 today. That is lower than the United States, which at 2 per woman is just enough for the population to replace itself.

Brazil's fertility rate took a big drop uniformly across the country. Suzana Cavenaghi, a Brazilian census bureau demographer. "We wouldn't expect that in a country that's so diverse, with a lot of poverty in so many places and so unequal, economically speaking."

Women were empowered by a pro-democracy movement that rose up against a 1970s-era military dictatorship. That dictatorship, which wanted to populate Brazil's remote areas, inadvertently contributed to fewer births by promoting industrialization. That led rural families to crowd into cities, where a brood of children could be a financial drain.

Women began to look for means of birth control, easily obtained without a prescription. Doctors in the public health service provided sterilizations, which became common, and women sought out pills that induced abortions long before those pills became the subject of controversy in the United States.

A report, "The Battle for Female Talent in Brazil," says that 59% of Brazilian women consider themselves “very ambitious" and that 80% of college-educated women aspire to upper-echelon positions. U.S. women are far less likely to give those responses.

The country's elaborate soaps, or telenovelas, have been an important factor in the drop in Brazilian fertility, researchers say. The protagonists inhabit an appealing, affluent, highflying world, whose distinguishing features include the small family.

EPA Silently Continues Support for Corn Ethanol, Bumping Target for 2012

December 30, 2011   DailyTech

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the power to push alternative fuel targets, with a hard target of reaching 36 billion gallons of production by 2022.

The target for corn ethanol was increased 3.39%, cellulosic biofuel (derived from woody plant waste) 31.06%, biomass-based diesel (e.g. refined spent cooking oil) 25%, and advanced biofuel (sugarcane ethanol, algal oil, etc.) 48.15%. Total renewable fuel 8.96% (after adjustment for volume.

Click on the headline above for the article, a descriptive chart and infographic.

The corn ethanol increase was disappointing for those pushing for oil independence and lowered emissions. It's broadly known that corn ethanol both increases greenhouse gas emissions and increases food prices. The EPA appears to be in the minority of remaining federal supporters. Congress recently finalized the cut to corn ethanol's tax subsidy.

Since the EPA now has the right to force importers and refiners to use a certain amount of corn ethanol, regardless of how expensive it is, the corn ethanol industry will likely push the issue by simply raising prices to recoup their lost subsidy.

The cellulosic ethanol figure was orders of magnitude smaller than the original EISA proposal - cellulosic ethanol startup companies like Coskata seemed promising, but difficulty in establishing a solid food-chain to deliver biomass stock and finding the funding to scale laboratory work to production-scale designs has led to the great cellulosic ethanol fizzle. However, there is still hope for this novel technology, which turns non-viable biomaterial (woody waste) into fuel. In 2012 the EPA is increasing the cellulosic ethanol target from the prior year - possibly a signal that the industry is making progress.

The U.S. Navy's deep investment in algal fuel cut costs from $424/gallon last year to $26.67 this year, which would account for the steep rise in advanced biofuel.

From the comments at the bottom of the article 'm15' said that, to provide enough corn ethanol to fulfill our needs for vehicle fuel would require more (1.7 to 6 times) than the total agricultural land area available in the US. Corn ethanol uses almost as much energy to produce the fuel as the fuel itself contains.

Corn ethanol uses an extensive amount of water and intensive tilling, which causes top soil loss. 1 inch of topsoil is lost every 5-10 years and takes 500 years to replace. We are sacrificing our future food growing farmland to make biofuels now.

The EROI (energy returned over energy invested) of corn ethanol is about 1.07 - not enough to make a profit on except for the subsidies.(http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53589 ) So the taxpayers are paying 4X for a product that uses about as much energy as it produces: once for subsidies, once for more car repair bills, once for poorer fuel economy, and once for higher food prices.

U.S.: An Unfair Fight for Renewable Energies

December 02, 2011   Washington Post

By Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California

More energy from the sun hits Earth in one hour than all the energy consumed on our planet in an entire year.

In those terms, it is absurd that our federal government spends tens of billions of dollars annually subsidizing the oil industry, which pulls diminishing resources from underground, while the industry focused above ground on wind, solar and other renewable energies is derided in Washington.

Federal support for development of new energy sources is lower today than at any other point in U.S. history, and our government is forcing the clean-energy sector into a competitive disadvantage. To bring true competition to the energy market, ensure our national security and create jobs here rather than in China or elsewhere, we must level the playing field for renewable energies. In this presidential primary, Americans need to hear where the candidates stand on this critical issue.

When the oil, gas and nuclear industries were forming, federal support for those energies totaled as much as 1 percent of federal spending. Subsidies available to the renewables industry today are just one-tenth of 1 percent.

To read more, click on the link in the headline above.

How Television and Radio Shows Can Improve Behaviour: Soap Operas and Development

May 5, 2011   Economist

A radio drama produced by Population Media Center (PMC) and aired in Papua New Guinea depicts a widowed father who takes up dynamite fishing, which is profitable, but disastrous for the reef. Then he meets a marine scientist who warns him off. By the end of the drama, he and, hopefully the listeners, will renounce dynamite for sustainable fishing.

PMC is a pioneer of programmes with the goal of fostering development. Now other groups are following suit. In Vietnam a radio drama to teaches its listeners about domestic violence. In Kenya a television soap promotes civil rights.

In 2008 economists at the Inter-American Development Bank, for instance, found that Brazilians receiving Globo, a television network, had fewer children and got divorced more often.

In rural India, as cable television spread, the fertility rate in rural India dropped by as much as if women had received five additional years of education.

In Ethiopia demand for contraceptives rose by 157% among married women who listened to the soap operas, and male listeners sought tests for HIV/AIDS four times as much as male non-listeners.

Betty Oala of the PMC said "The best results are when people identify with characters." The organization does extensive research, takes on local writers and uses native languages.

Soaps are not only effective, they are also cheap. Radio programs can cost as little as three cents to reach a listener in Africa. Yet this method can be controversial. Charles Kenny, an economist, thinks that there could be a "quagmire of a debate over morals and a tangle of regulation". An increase in divorces, say, may seem like good news to a woman activist, but bad to a Catholic priest.

U.S.: Indiana Nonprofit Reworks Sex Ed Curriculum

April 11, 2011   Associated Press

Because the funding for A Positive Approach to Teen Health, or PATH, has changed, the curriculum of the agency that teaches sex education has been mandated to shift from abstinence-centered information to teen pregnancy prevention.

PATH is the only organization in the state that received funding as part of President Barack Obama's new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative. The initiative provides federal funding for the first time in more than 10 years to sex education programs that aren't solely based on abstinence, although some of the programs do include abstinence information.

The programs were chosen because they were evidence-based to reduce teen pregnancy.

From 2004 to 2010 the group received a federal grant called a Community Based Abstinence Education grant. In January 2010, the organization learned its funding source had been defunded.

PATH's curriculum aligns with the state's guidelines, which require some abstinence education.

Indiana Code states schools must include instruction on human sexuality and STDs, including telling students abstinence is the expected standard for school-age children, abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to prevent a premarital pregnancy and a monogamous marriage is the best way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.

Some teachers' approach is to teach abstinence first and then discuss the possibilities of what can happen if students choose non-abstinence, looking at not just sexually transmitted diseases, but also physical and mental changes.

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Employment, Public Office, and Land Ownership

Malaysia Says Women Must Hold 30 Percent of Top Corporate Posts for Gender Equality

June 27, 2011   Associated Press

A landmark decision by the Malaysia Cabinet says women must hold 30% of top corporate posts by 2016 to bolster the role of women in Malaysia, a mainly Muslim country.

Prime Minister Najib Razak says says the government will help companies develop programs to train women for decision-making roles.

A similar policy instituted in 2004 for the public sector has raised women's participation from 19% to 32%. Women already hold some top government posts in Malaysia.

Karen Gaia: There are many other countries that can benefit from Malaysia's example, including the U.S.

Protest Shuts Down Thai Hearing on Nuclear Power

February 07, 2007   International Herald Tribune

Thailand canceled a public hearing on a new power production plan to include the country's first nuclear plant. 200 villagers traveled 300 km (190 miles) from the west coast province of Prachuab Khirikhan to attend.

They didn't have a big enough room the senior ministry official Norkhun Sitthipong told reporters.

The villagers, whose protests in 2002 forced the government to cancel plans for two coal-powered plants, said they wanted no power plant in the province.

Thailand's latest plan calls for 11 700-megawatt power plants, three coal powered, to be built in Prachuab Khirikhan.

It also seeks to use more coal, biofuels and nuclear power and buy electricity from Laos, Myanmar and China. rw

U.S.: Health, Abortion Issues Split Obama Administration and Catholic Groups

November 01, 2011   Washington Post

The new health-care law and ongoing divisions over access to abortion and birth control have resulted in a contentious battle between Catholic groups and the Obama administration.

In late September the Department of Health and Human Services decided to end funding to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to help victims of human trafficking, or modern-day slavery. Three other groups received the funding because the bishops organization refused to refer trafficking victims for contraceptives or abortion.

The bishops conference is threatening legal action and accusing the administration of anti-Catholic bias, which HHS officials deny.

On another matter, the bishops fiercely oppose the administration's decision in February to no longer defend the federal law barring the recognition of same-sex marriage.

Also Catholic groups also have objected in recent weeks to a proposed HHS mandate - issued under the health-care law - that would require private insurers to provide women with contraceptives without charge.

Regarding the human trafficking funding, the ACLU, in the lawsuit it filed in U.S. District Court in Boston in 2009, argued that many women are raped by their traffickers and don't speak English, making it hard for them to find reproductive services without help.

While the bishops' organization would not refer women directly, it allowed subcontractors to arrange for the services, but it refused to reimburse the subcontractors with federal dollars.

"The principle of church teaching is that all sexual encounters be open to life,' said Walsh, of the bishops conference. "It's not a minor matter; this is intrinsic to our Catholic beliefs.'

The ACLU lawsuit argued that HHS allowed the Catholic group to impose its beliefs. But in defending the contract on behalf of HHS, Justice Department lawyers argued that the contract was constitutional and that the bishops had been "resoundingly successful in increasing assistance to victims of human trafficking.'

However, this spring, as the contract approached its expiration, HHS political appointees became involved in reshaping the request for proposals, adding a "strong preference" for applicants offering referrals for family planning and the "full range" of "gynecological and obstetric care.' That would include abortions and birth control; federal funds cannot be used for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

The "strong preference" language now lies at the heart of the dispute.

Birth Control Fits the Bill in the Philippines

June 8, 2011   New Straits Times (Malaysia)

In the case of the Philippines population growth is out of control.

You can argue from superstition, from authority or from fact (science). Where religion is involved many folks in the Philippines are going to appeal to No 2: authority, which winds up being the Pope.

But the Pope doesn't have the right to speak for the Philippines as a whole. Catholics predominate, but there are lots of Muslims, breakaway Christians and mainstream Christians who happen not to be Catholic.

Father Joaquin Bernas, priest and former president of Ateneo de Manila University is supporting the Reproductive Health Bill, despite vituperative denunciations.

The bill, RH4244 or "An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and For Other Purposes", establishes means of educating school kids on sex and their choices ahead and provide non-abortive methods of birth control. Governments would ensure the availability of reproductive healthcare services, including family planning and prenatal care.

Most countries would have no problem with this bill. And Catholics almost nowhere else give a hoot what the Pope or church say on birth control.

Now that the president, the most authoritative ex-president and numerous writers and teachers are on board in support of RH4244, things are changing.

But, meantime, one reads arguments attempting to show that more mouths to feed doesn't mean more mouths to feed, but more people to farm the (almost disappearing) soil. Or that the overflow people should move to uninhabited areas in the archipelago, even uninhabited islands. Are there roads into these places? Schools? Hospitals?

Supporters of the bill are being threatened with excommunication. Some proclaim a condom is a "murder weapon".

In 1970, the Philippines and Thailand were about equal in numbers and wealth. Thailand introduced family planning; the Philippines maintained its voodoo attitude. Thailand stabilized not much above the 1970s level and doubled its income relative to the Philippines.

It is funny that Malta just voted to permit divorce while only the Philippines remains. Most of my younger friends grew up not knowing their fathers, who just drifted off to start a new family somewhere else. So much for the status quo protecting the family.

The fact that the president who has proposed this bill is the son of late president Cory Aquino, protégée of Cardinal Sin and dead set against family planning, may be good news enough.

The overall majority popular support for the bill may finally just be enough to give the Congress enough teeth to withstand the clawing of the church and its advocates.

Navigating the Turbulent Waters of Religion and Women's Rights: An Interview with Thoraya Obaid

Huffington Post

Thoraya Obaid, a proud Muslim and Saudi Arabian citizen, just completed ten years as Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In her reflections, she said:

"My father was a devout Muslim who took very seriously the first principle in the Quran which is about learning. He insisted that his daughters get a good education and he never interfered with my life choices.

"It was clear from the day I started at UNFPA that it was the most controversial of the UN agencies. The attacks were strongest during the Bush 43 administration years, but we have been attacked all the time, including by feminist groups that fear that UNFPA has 'sold out'".

The attacks come only from the United States. Recent Republican administrations have withdrawn United States funding from UNFPA, citing the "Kemp Kasten Amendment" which was enacted to ensure that no US money goes to any organizations that participates in the management of coercive population policies.

"The issue is that UNFPA works in China, and China is considered by some in Congress and the US administration (when there is a Republican President), to be subject to the Kemp Kasten Amendment. UNFPA's work in China has been reviewed many times, and always with the conclusion that UNFPA has a positive influence on China's policies. The Bush administration sent a team to China that reached the same conclusion, but that made no difference. Throughout President Bush's tenure, Congress appropriated funds for UNFPA but Bush would not release them. It all was the result of the influence of the religious right.

"Democratic Presidents (Clinton and Obama) release the funding, after deducting the small amounts that would be spent on UNFPA's China program; we are asked to put the funds in a separate account and be held accountable for it."

Thoraya Obaid met several times with the Holy See's representative to the United Nations. They agreed to disagree. It was significant that they opened a channel that would allow them to communicate if times got tough. On the ground, in many parts of the world, we work all the time with the Catholic Church on common agendas such as ending violence against women.

"We are working to build relationships and partnerships with a wide range of groups, including but also going beyond the traditional feminist/reproductive health groups. It is important to broaden the base of understanding and support and find ways to support each other. Some groups still have doubts about UNFPA's commitment and approach and some are uneasy specifically about our effort to work with faith groups, fearing that it signals an erosion in our commitment to human rights. It absolutely does not. Today, over 400 faith based groups form the Global Network of Faith-based Organizations for Population and Development.

"By dealing with cultural values and religious beliefs, we aim to promote human rights, never to accept the status quo or harmful practices but rather to expand the reach of the human rights agenda."

"There are some things that we, UNFPA, cannot address and discuss, while some things women's groups can address less effectively.

"Abortion is the most controversial topic. We, UNFPA, are mandated to consider abortion within the context of public health, but never as a right, as some NGOs do. That is a clear parameter from the ICPD Programme of Action, the famous and much contested clause 8.25 which set out the position towards abortion. It states that abortion should never be a form of family planning and that when family planning services are available and accessible that lowers abortions. Abortion is a national issue to be decided by national l

Investing in Women to Advance Economic Growth

June 4, 2009   CEDPA

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke said in a Congressional briefing: "Despite the significant progress, there is still a wealth of untapped potential in women."

Economic growth for women has an important multiplier effect, which is why the World Bank calls investing in women .smart economics. Women tend to share their economic gains with their families and communities. One study concluded that investing in women's education and leadership in Africa can increase agricultural yields by more than 20%.

Women own only 1% of the world's wealth, have only a 10% share in global income, and occupy just 14% of leadership positions in the private and public sector. Women produce half of the world's food, but own a only 1% of its land.

ExxonMobil Foundation's Lorie Jackson said that "investment in women is not philanthropic, it's just smart business." Equipping women from all backgrounds with the education, skills and support systems necessary to be successful managers, business leaders and entrepreneurs is one of the most important means to ensuring economic growth in the developing world.

Evelyn Omawumi Urhobo of Nigeria's Morgan Smart Development Foundation her community bank gives loans to "rural poor women who did not have access to credit to start businesses that would enable them to lift themselves out of poverty. To date, the bank has given loans to over 15,000 people mostly poor women in the region." They have a 85% pay back rate on loans given to the women.

The Global Women in Management program is CEDPA's longest running training program, with thousands of graduate in almost every country worldwide.

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Gender Equality

India;: Church Steps in to Advocate Safe Sex

December 23, 2006   Statesman

With the state reeling under drug use and HIV, a church in Manipur has taken a decision to step in and advocate safe sex, condom use and harm reduction behaviour, a move expected to make HIV interventions reachable for high risk groups. The Evangelist Baptist Convention Church (EBC), has decided to use the pulpit to talk about safe sex, HIV and drug use. The decision has been left to the pastors of individual churches with 15-16 agreeing to talk about HIV every Sunday.

The organisation has so far not been talking about condoms and needle exchange among drug users. Use of condoms and syringes is not permitted, but we have to check on reality. The EBC has introduced a module on HIV training in Grace Bible College for those aspiring to be pastors. Under EBC initiatives, the last Sunday of every November is celebrated as AIDS Awareness Day. The Church caters to spiritual aspects but cannot neglect drugs and HIV. Almost three families out of four are affected by drug use and HIV. The state has been adversely impacted by drug use, ethnic conflict, insurgency and poverty. About 24% of the IDUs (intravenous drug users) and 11.4% female sex workers in Manipur are HIV positive. However, 50-60% of IDUs tested positive for HIV. A high prevalence of HIV in IDUs has led to its spread to the general population through the sexual route. An IDU may have multiple sexual partners. rw

tion made possible a new world, a world of fewer obstacles, a world with a promise of equality.

Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia in 1790 at the age of 84. He left Jane the house in which she lived and he gave one hundred pounds to the public schools of Boston.

Jane Mecom died in that house in 1794. Later her house was demolished to make room for a memorial to Paul Revere.

Karen Gaia says: many Americans chide other countries for the way they treat their women, but we were there in their shoes a little over 200 years ago.

U.N. Women: A Historic Opportunity Unveiled

March 04, 2011   InterPress Service

Last week the 55th session of the Commission on the Status of Women established U.N. Women - a newly founded task force dedicated to gender equality and women's empowerment.

"U.N. Women comes at a time when the bankruptcy of the policies of the last seven decades have been laid bare," Mallika Dutt, president and CEO of Breakthrough, said. "U.N. Women has the potential to be a real game changer and not another bureaucratic U.N. agency."

"UNIFEM was always considered a baby, or a stepchild of the U.N., compared to agencies like the UNDP [U.N. Development Programme] and UNFPA [U.N. Population Fund].

In 1945, more than half a century ago, the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco wrote women's equality into its canon. Though only four of the original 160 signatories were women, one from the Dominican Republic, one from the United States, one from Brazil and one from China, women's rights were successfully inscribed in the U.N.'s founding document: "faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small".

However, 66 years later, women continue to struggle, far below the level of their male counterparts, in every single aspect of human society. Only 11 of the 192 heads of state are women; one in three women in the world will experience rape or sexual assault in her lifetime; and while performing two-thirds of the world's work, women own a mere one percent of the means of production.

The World of Women

November 3, 2010   Kamloops Daily News (British Columbia)

Two United Nations reports on the condition of women around the world. Women and girls have made progress or at least held steady in many of the policy areas including work, education, poverty and life expectancy -- but they continue to lag behind men in almost every one of those categories. And sexual violence against women and girls is a universal phenomenon. But the reports are remarkable on two fronts.

First, they are more comprehensive than previous studies, because most countries now keep sex- disaggregated data on, among other things, population, school enrollment, employment, child labour and the number of women serving in government. This allows researchers to present increasingly accurate snapshots of women's lives, particularly in developing nations.

Second, the reports suggest a way forward. In almost every instance of progress or advancement for women, whether in the work world or attaining political power, there is a correlation with education. In the last 10 years, girls have moved toward parity with boys in elementary school enrollment, with especially large gains made in Africa and southern Central Asia. In Kenya, for example, 1.2 million children flooded primary schools in January 2003 when the government abolished school fees.

Girls in particular had been disadvantaged by the fees because poor families, forced to choose which child to educate, had given preference to boys. Globally, enrollment of women in universities has also increased dramatically.

Here girls have the greatest access to education, they marry later, have fewer children and more economic opportunity.

In Europe, women are on average age 30 or older when they first marry, according to the report, whereas in some developing countries, such as Mali and Niger, they do so before age 20.

Sexual violence against women, particularly during war, causes long-term trauma. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, rape victims are still suffering physically and psychologically 15 years after the war ended. That bodes ill for places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where women are being systematically assaulted.

In developed countries, women face fewer obstacles to education but bump against a thick glass ceiling. They continue to be under- represented among legislators and senior managers, and overrepresented among clerks and service workers. And they still earn less than men. In the home, women spend about five hours a day on child care and chores, while men average two hours.

In the U.S., however, men have reached parity with women in hours spent on chores and housework. rw

The Gendered Face of Climate Change

November 20, 2009   Livemint.com

A new report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says that women, who make up a large share of the agricultural work force, are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but are also key players in mitigating its effects on humanity.

Women also manage households and care for family members, which restricts their mobility, so they often lack the social capital necessary to deal effectively with climate change.

On the other hand, woman often desire to reduce the number of children they might have, which would, in turn, reduce population growth, contributing to a reduction of greenhouse gas-emissions in the future.

The UNFPA report comes a few weeks before the Copenhagen climate talks and follows just a short time after the release of the World Economic Forum's gender gap index, which ranks India at 114 out of 134 countries, on the basis of economic participation, political participation, education and health.

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Self Esteem

Birth Rate Plummets in Brazil

December 30, 2011   Washington Post

Across Latin America fertility rates plummeted, even though abortion is illegal, the Catholic Church opposes birth control and government-run family planning is rare.

Migration to the cities, the expansion of the female workforce, better health care and the example of the small, affluent families portrayed on the region's popular soap operas have contributed to such a fast demographic shift that it caught social scientists by surprise. The number of children per woman when from 6 in 1960 to 2.3 by 2010.

Brazil has been particularly fascinating for demographers, it's fertility rate falling lower than in any other Latin American country except Cuba, which has state-sponsored family planning and legalized abortion. With a population of almost 200 million, there is a great gap between rich and poor, although millions have joined the middle class during Brazil's recent economic expansion.

The country's fertility rate has fallen from 6.15 children per woman in 1960 to less than 1.9 today. That is lower than the United States, which at 2 per woman is just enough for the population to replace itself.

Brazil's fertility rate took a big drop uniformly across the country. Suzana Cavenaghi, a Brazilian census bureau demographer. "We wouldn't expect that in a country that's so diverse, with a lot of poverty in so many places and so unequal, economically speaking."

Women were empowered by a pro-democracy movement that rose up against a 1970s-era military dictatorship. That dictatorship, which wanted to populate Brazil's remote areas, inadvertently contributed to fewer births by promoting industrialization. That led rural families to crowd into cities, where a brood of children could be a financial drain.

Women began to look for means of birth control, easily obtained without a prescription. Doctors in the public health service provided sterilizations, which became common, and women sought out pills that induced abortions long before those pills became the subject of controversy in the United States.

A report, "The Battle for Female Talent in Brazil," says that 59% of Brazilian women consider themselves “very ambitious" and that 80% of college-educated women aspire to upper-echelon positions. U.S. women are far less likely to give those responses.

The country's elaborate soaps, or telenovelas, have been an important factor in the drop in Brazilian fertility, researchers say. The protagonists inhabit an appealing, affluent, highflying world, whose distinguishing features include the small family.

U.S.: Colorado's Poorest Counties Have High Teen Pregnancy Rates

April 11, 2011   The Denver Post

The Colorado Children's Campaign has found that there is a wide and growing gulf between the state's affluent and its poor when it comes to how they choose to create and maintain families.

The poorest counties have the highest rates of teen pregnancy, while, in affluent counties, new moms are more likely to be in their 30s.

Many close to the issue are convinced that teenage pregnancy is less a matter of morals or sex education or access to birth control than it is a matter of a girl or boy feeling that they have a future. Or not. Girls with prospects do not have babies. Teen pregnancy is well established as a cause of poverty, but it may also be a result of poverty.

Lisa Piscopo, a Colorado Children's Campaign researcher, said "I believe girls choose to have babies when they don't have a vision of any other options."

The answer is neither handing out condoms nor preaching abstinence, but to offer more of a vision for other options. Debbie Channel made a grant-funded attempt to curtail teen pregnancies by convincing young girls that there was a big world out there and they could claim a place in it.

In Huerfano County the average annual income just over half the statewide average and an unemployment rate that rose to over 10% last year. It has the state's highest rate of births to girls ages 15 through 17, and 54% of babies born in Huerfano County were to unmarried women.

Nationwide five of the wealthiest states had the lowest teen pregnancy rates. But Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada had the highest teen birth rates. All but Arizona and Nevada are among the poorest states.

In 2009, a University of Chicago study reported that by age 17, one-third of young women in foster care reported having been pregnant, and by age 19 the number was nearly half. As many as one third of girls interviewed for the study said they wanted to become pregnant, perhaps "to create the family they don't have or fill an emotional void."

China Urges Int'l Community to Promote Gender Equality Legislation

February 25, 2011   Xinhua

The 55th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women, was held from Feb. 22 to March 4 at the UN headquarters in New York.

Song Xiuyan, vice chair-person of the All China Women's Federation, said that the international community should continue to strengthen its efforts to enhance women's economic situation and political status, improve women's participation in society, education and labor market, eliminate violence against women, and guarantee women's rights and interests.

Song said the launching of UN Women, formally known as the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, clearly indicates the great importance that different parties have attached to, and the broad consensus reached on women issues.

She proposed that the UN Women should be committed to the realization of women's full development, with more input being made to alleviate poverty among women and to improve their education and health.

Australia: Anglicans: We Have to Acknowledge and Respond to Population Issues in Order to Care for Life

October 15, 2010   Chair of the Anglican General Synod Public Affairs Commission

At a time when the Catholic church is so often in the news for appalling attitudes to population, it is heartening to see the Anglicans making informed and moral observations about the need to reign in population growth.

The General Synod has now endorsed the viewpoint of its Public Affairs Committee. We have to acknowledge and respond to population issues in order to care for life. The Anglican General Synod of Australia recently held its three-yearly meeting, at which a motion about the need to acknowledge and respond to population issues in order to care for life on our planet was warmly supported.

The Lambeth conference of bishops from the world-wide Anglican communion reaffirmed a decade ago that the divine Spirit is in Creation and human beings have a responsibility to make sacrifices for the common good of all life.

This year the Public Affairs Commission of the Australian Anglican Church presented a discussion paper on population issues which formed the basis for the attached motion recently passed by the national Synod.

The Synod has called on Anglicans to grow in understanding of global and national environmental challenges and the fundamental role of human population growth and consumption in contributing to them. It has encouraged individuals and the church to reduce their levels of consumption, and to contribute thoughtfully and prayerfully to public debate about how to achieve justice for future as well as current Australians and to nurture life on this fragile land with all its beauty and diversity. It emphasized the need to share in a world of finite resources, showing concern particularly for neighbours who live in the poorest two-thirds of the world.

The Synod called on the Australian Government to avoid any reliance on population growth to maintain economic growth; to determine a sustainable population policy for Australia; to consider carefully any incentive aimed specifically and primarily at increasing Australia's population, while continuing to support low-income families; and to contribute more generously to improving the welfare of people in the least developed nations, and other life in their environments, in particular by including support for family planning and women's reproductive health programs with aid for development. rw

Philippines Making Significant Progress in Empowering Women

December 23, 2008   Thai Press Reports

The Philippine is making headway in addressing gender issues and laws promoting participation of women in productive and income-generating activities and laws addressing violence against women and children.

A Gender and Development (GAD) Budget Policy provides allocation of 5% of national and local government budgets for gender and development. The Philippine government is dedicated to addressing all forms of discrimination against women and is taking initiative in addressing violence against women, reducing women's vulnerability to trafficking and unsafe migration, accelerating women's participation, particularly Muslim and indigenous, in political life and decision, addressing high unemployment rate, enhancing access to health care and capability building and providing access to resources and security. All institutions may nominate any person who embodies all the qualifications of the proposed champion. The first MDG champion will be awarded an Orlina glass sculpture, scholarship grant, study tour abroad to United Nations General Headquarters (UNGH) in New York, United States and Geneva, Switzerland, free travel around the Philippines and designation by 2015 as Ambassador of Goodwill. rw

Pakistan: Population Welfare Department Motivating People to Keep Their Family Small

February 19, 2008   Daily Times

The Provincial Minister said the Population Welfare Department (PWD) is of great importance to motivate people to keep their family small and methods of population welfare.

The minister said all steps were being taken to provide facilities and improve the structure of the department's employees.

If the population was not controlled, serious problems could be created due to the population growth. People should keep their family to their economic resources. Scholars and people in the media could play an important role in informing couples about family planning.

Abdul Aleem said family welfare centres had been set up at all hospitals of the Water and Power Development Authority and its Ferozepur Road Hospital had given the best performance. He said 94 welfare centres of the PWD were operating in Lahore. rw

Population Drops in Cuba in 2006

May 18, 2007   Caribbean Net News

The population of Cuba dropped by 4,300 in 2006 the first time in 25 years.

The number of births dropped from 120,716 in 2005 to 111,084 in 2006, which corroborates an aging population in Cuba due to a decreasing birthrate.

Since the mid-1970s, the growth rate has been below replacement level.

Changes in the role of Cuban women and economic limitations are seen as contributing factors.

An average Cuban family today is comprised of only three persons. rw

ugh 15- to 24-year-olds make up a quarter of the nation's sexually active population, they account for nearly half of all new sexually transmitted infections a year. People are going to develop sexually whether ready for it or not.

One of its goals is to open communication, so that children can chat comfortably with parents about intimate issues.

The state requires schools to give only HIV/AIDS education, once in middle school and once in high school. A 2004 California law calls on schools that do offer broader sex ed to make sure the courses are medically accurate, age-appropriate and free of religious ideology.

In choosing to teach about condoms and contraception, the state passed up millions of dollars the federal government makes available to abstinence-only programs.

More than half of Americans believe that teaching teens how to obtain and use condoms does not rush them into sex. A survey found nearly two-thirds of adults and more than three-quarters of teens calling on faith institutions to do more to help prevent teen pregnancy. rw