Beat on the Ground:
PATH Foundation’s Population, Health, and Environment Leadership as a Way of Life
According to those interviewed, an integrated approach is the best way to alleviate food insecurity in the area. “We cannot separate population, health, and environment, they should be implemented hand in hand,” said Marlyn Alcanises, a Fisheries and Coastal Resource Management program officer. “Even if we manage our coastal resources well, if there are many children due to high fertility and population growth, many people are hungry.”
The comprehensive program has been successful in addressing the social and environmental problems in the Verde Island Passage of the Philippines, one of Asia’s most densely populated regions, as well as a marine biodiversity hotspot and sea lane for many commercial ships.
The program uses community-based distribution of contraceptives to increase access to family planning, micro-credit schemes to finance sustainable livelihoods and alleviate poverty, and advocacy campaigns to increase government support for integrated health and environment programs.
Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator Cecilia Zulueta praised the integrated approach, saying “it can slow down population growth, decrease the number of malnutrition cases, lessen the number of out-of-school youth, and it can also decrease the crime rate, because if one does not have a stable source of income it may force him to engage in illegal activities.”
In ECSP’s FOCUS Issue 15, “Fishing for Families: Reproductive Health and Integrated Coastal Management in the Philippines,” Joan Castro and Leona D’Agnes demonstrated that PFPI’s Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management project (IPOPCORM) was more cost-effective and had a greater impact on the wellbeing of both human reproductive health and coastal resources than non-integrated programs. In a study measuring the impacts of integrated versus single-sector reproductive health (RH) or coastal resource management (CRM) programs, they found the integrated approach met or exceeded single-sector outcomes for 26 out of 27 indicators.
Reducing high fertility rates reduces pressure on natural resources, decreases high rates of malnutrition, crime and HIV/AIDS, and preserves local fisheries, “making life sustainable for both humans and nature,” as PFPI puts it in the documentary. The hope is that the community leaders featured in the documentary will inspire others in similar situations to take the lead on integrated issues in their communities.
“Even if we are doing environmental conservation through population management in our province but the others are not, it will still create conflict somehow,” said Alcanises. “I believe that whatever program is being done in one province should also be done in other provinces, in order to avoid conflict and promote balance in program implementation.”
Julio Lopez, president of the Galera Association of Managers and Entertainers said, “this land is ours, and we are responsible in taking care of it.”
PFPI, along with the University of Rhode Island's Coastal Resource Center and Conservation International, is part of the BALANCED project, which last year launched the PHE Toolkit as a resource for PHE professionals. For more on PFPI’s IPOPCORM program, see ECSP’s interviews with Joan Casto and Leona D’Agnes on our YouTube channel: “Joan Castro - Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM)” and “Leona D'Agnes on Population, Health, and Environment.”
Video Credit: “Population-Health-Environment (PHE) A Video Documentary,” courtesy of YouTube user PATHFoundationPhils.
Sources: Population Reference Bureau.
Dot-Mom:
Watch: David Aylward on How Wireless Technology is Changing Global Health and Empowering Women
We spoke to Aylward before the Global Health Initiative (GHI) event “New Applications for Existing Technologies to Improve Maternal Health,” at the Wilson Center earlier this week.
“We’ve gone from a billion subscribers to five billion subscribers in the last six years, and 70 percent of those are in the developing world,” he said. “So almost everywhere you go a woman has a cellphone or has access to a cellphone.”
This access allows women in the developing world to do basic things those in the developed world take for granted, like call for help or set up reminders. The most important thing to think about in the future is to continue empowering women with the tools and knowledge to understand their own healthcare and supporting them with better care.
“All of which are possible in the very near term if we can get the different parties to get together and work on them together,” said Aylward, “and that’s what our mission is.”
Check out the the full event summary from GHI here.
Reading Radar:
Energy and Climate Change in the Context of National Security
Watch: Alex Evans on Natural Resource Supply and Demand, Scarcity, and Resilience
“Global population is growing, a kind of new global middle class is expanding, especially in emerging economies, and that means demand is rising across the board – particularly for energy, for food, water, and air space for our carbon emissions.”
Evans joined Mathew Burrows of the National Intelligence Council this September at the Wilson Center to talk about scarcity, natural resources, and conflict. He argued that building resilience and improving governance of natural resources is key to addressing growing demand, particularly in developing countries.
“With the Millennium Development Goals there’s been tremendous emphasis on increasing access to services, like health and education, which is important,” he said. “But we haven’t always brought the risk management aspect to the fore, and I think the emphasis we’re starting to see now on areas like social protection, climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction – these are areas that are much more concerned with resilience and it’s very welcome that they’re moving to the front of the development agenda.”
Poor governance in some developing countries has resulted in cases like in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where natural resources are seen as more of a curse to the local people than a blessing. The intersection between supply and demand will continue to make these problems more acute.
“Over the last 10 years when international aid agencies have thought about governance, it’s usually been in terms of capacity building in the executive branch – areas like public financial management,” said Evans. “I think increasingly we’ll see more of the very, very political issues surrounding who owns natural resources like land, or water, or fisheries, or forests.”
Evans also highlighted other international governance issues like transboundary agreements (or lack thereof), the resiliency of the international trade system (or lack thereof), and existing legal infrastructure that will be challenged by a changing climate and growing demand.
“We haven’t really begun to think these issues through,” he said, “but these are potential conflict flashpoints for the future.”
Pop Audio:
Christian Leuprecht on Demography, Conflict, and Sub-National Security
"Demographics are going to be to the 21st century what class cleavages were to the 19th century," said Christian Leuprecht in this conversation with the Environmental Change and Security Program. Leuprecht is an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and was one of the authors featured in ECSP Report 13.
“Specifically with regards to demography and security, the challenge that I see is at the sub-national level. That is to say that most of the conflict, if you look around the world – the intractable conflicts, the violent conflicts, the conflicts that have been dragging on for decades – tend to be at the sub-national level,” he said. “Yet much of the academic work and the way data are gathered are at the national level.”
The "Pop Audio" series offers brief clips from ECSP's conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.
You Are Invited: October 27, 2010
New Applications for Existing Technologies to Improve Maternal Health
The Global Health Initiative and Environmental Change and Security Program
Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
6th Floor Auditorium
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast
David Aylward, mHealth Alliance at the UN Foundation
Alain Labrique, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Josh Nesbit, FrontlineSMS: Medic
In developing countries, the women most in need are often the most isolated, but mobile and web technologies are emerging as a way to bridge this gap and improve maternal health. Technologies such as SMS text messaging provide mothers, health care workers, and institutions with up-to-the-minute information critical to saving lives and building local capacity.
About the Maternal Health Policy Series
The reproductive and maternal health community finds itself at a critical point, drawing increased attention and funding, but still confronting more than 350,000 deaths each year and a high unmet need for family planning. The Policy Dialogue series seeks to galvanize the community by focusing on important issues within the maternal health community.
The Wilson Center’s Global Health Initiative is pleased to present this series with its co-conveners, the Maternal Health Task Force and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and is grateful to USAID’s Bureau for Global Health for further technical assistance.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org/ondemand. The live webcast will begin approximately 10 minutes after the posted meeting time. You will need Windows Media Player to watch the webcast. To download the free player, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 6th floor auditorium. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
Guest Contributor Justine Lindemann:
Rape, Resource Management, and the UN in Congo: What Can Be Done?
Walikale, the site of a recent scourge of rapes and violence is not unlike several other cities and villages in the Kivus and in the DRC in general. Rich in both tin and gold, Walikale is beset by a convergence of several opposing military factions: the rebel Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple, (CNDP), whose members have supposedly been reintegrated into the official Congolese army; the FARDC, who have been accused of crimes as egregious as those committed by rebel armies; the Rwandan FDLR; Tutsi rebel factions; and numerous other smaller rebel groups and non-Congolese military groups.
The raping of more than 300 women, children, and men that occurred between July 31 and August 2 in the area of Walikale and the village of Ruvungi has made international news headlines and caused an uproar about the role and responsibilities of the United Nation mission in the DRC – MONUSCO (formerly MONUC) – and their capacity to actually keep the peace. UN peacekeepers, stationed about 30 kilometers away from the attacks, were reportedly aware of rebel activity in the area, but were not aware of the mass raping until after the crimes had been committed. Officials went on a fact-finding mission several days later once the rapes were reported by the International Medical Corps. Some, however, argue that officials should have acted differently, dispatching peacekeepers to the Walikale area as soon as they were made aware of rebel activity.
UN workers and other international organizations may have known about the rapes while they were occurring, and in retrospect the international community can criticize their inaction during the perpetration of this massive atrocity, but there are larger questions that loom: Why has the DRC become the "rape capital of the world?" And what can we do to enable UN peacekeeping forces to actually keep the peace?
More than two months after these crimes were perpetrated, rapes are no doubt still occurring across the region. The UN has declared that militias will be charged for the crimes in Walikale, arrests have already been made, and there are people doing good work to help the victims of sexual crimes after the fact. But despite these efforts and the ongoing presence of MONUSCO and efforts to integrate and train the FARDC as a legitimate army that protects the citizens of the country, sexual violence against civilians, and especially against women, has continued at an outrageous level.
The mandate of MONUSCO, carried over in part from its predecessor, MONUC, is to both protect civilians and backstop the efforts of the FARDC – a sometimes conflicting mandate. Designed to keep the peace and monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, to "facilitate humanitarian assistance and human rights monitoring, with particular attention to vulnerable groups including women, children and demobilized child soldiers" (emphasis added), the UN mission has clearly not been able to successfully fulfill this mandate, even after almost 12 years on the ground. While the UN charter does not explicitly include the word "peacekeeping," and there are those who argue that it is not properly structured to act as a peacekeeping body, the UN has more than 60 peacekeeping missions under its belt since its first mission in 1948 and the DRC is its largest ever. Still, the weak record of success of MONUC and of its successor MONUSCO together with the unreliability of the FARDC does not inspire confidence for the safety or security of civilians in the DRC.
Why the rapes continue and why neither MONUSCO nor the Congolese authorities are unable to stop them are complicated questions. Explanations range from political complications preventing peacekeepers from becoming involved in day-to-day human security to a simple lack of mission resources. The rapes in Walikale occurred in an area with abundant tin deposits and some of the largest gold mines in the country. The DRC, and the east in particular, is ripe with resources, and historically, underdeveloped regions characterized by such a heavy concentration of natural resources are often more cursed than they are blessed. The competition over resources and violence spurred by an unequal distribution of rents is perhaps part of the reason for such intense violence; it does not, however, explain why rape has become a weapon of choice, why women have become a target of war crimes in general, or why the level of violence against women in the DRC in particular has risen to such a horrifying level.
Justine Lindemann is program assistant with the Africa Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Sources: AFP, AFRICOM, AllAfrica, BBC, Congo Siasa, IPS News, The New York Times, Panzi Hospital of Bukavu, UN, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, VII Photo Agency.
Photo Credit: "Congo kivu," courtesy of flickr user andré thiel.
Beat on the Ground:
Watch: Population, Health, and Environment in Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s population is estimated at 85 million. Since 1900, the country has grown by nearly 74 million people, and the United Nations predicts this rapid growth will continue, reaching nearly 120 million people by 2025.
“Family planning is very crucial” to sustainable development, said Gebrehiwot Hailu of the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), located in the northern region of Tigray. “If the family has more children… he can’t feed them properly, he can’t send the children to school, because there is a food gap in the household.” REST uses a watershed planning model jointly developed by the community, health workers, and government agencies.
Realizing there is no silver bullet to development, projects like REST integrate population, health, and environment (PHE) programs to engage these challenges from all angles.
The Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resource Association (EWNRA), located in Ethiopia’s Wichi watershed, uses a combination of techniques to restore the watershed, create alternative livelihoods, strengthen health systems, and improve reproductive health.
“Through this integrated watershed intervention, the wetland is regaining its natural situation,” Shewaye Deribe of EWNRA told me. “The communities with their own bylaws, with their own watershed committee, with their own organization… are protecting these remaining forest patches.”
Sources: Population Reference Bureau.
Eye On:
UNFPA State of World Population 2010
For more on the UNFPA report, be sure to listen to The New Security Beat’s interview with one of its authors, Barbara Crossette, who talks about her experiences dealing with family planning around the world, as part of our ongoing Pop Audio series.
Video Credit: UNFPA.
Reading Radar:
Assessing Our Impact on the World's Rivers
The human impact on the world’s river systems will be hard to reverse, says Margaret Palmer, author of a second Nature article on freshwater biodiversity loss, “Beyond Infrastructure.” Human-induced changes to watersheds affect local hydrology at a fundamental level, she contends, weakening rivers’ ability to deliver crucial “ecological goods and services” — such as clean water and nutrient-rich sediment loads — that help maintain the health of local environments and the human populations that depend on them. To fully understand the scope of the problem, Palmer says more research is needed to explore the linkages between biodiversity levels and “ecosystem services” that healthy rivers provide.
You Are Invited: October 20, 2010
Complex Connections: Ecological Impacts of Chinese Investment in Southeast Asia
The China Environment Forum and Environmental Change and Security Program
Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
5th Floor Conference Room
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast
Suwanna Gauntlett, Wildlife Alliance
Keith Barney, York University/Forest Trends
Xiaomei Tan, World Resources Institute
Rose Niu, WWF
The issue of China’s ecological footprint on neighboring countries of Southeast Asia and its implication for regional environmental governance has attracted increasing attention in recent years. While Chinese state-backed firms and state-owned banks are ever-larger investors in dam building, mining, and timber concessions in Southeast Asia, there are many other countries involved in this complex network of investment that ultimately produces many products consumed around the world—the United States, for example, is the top consumer of timber exports from China.
Xiaomei Tan, drawing on her own research and that of WRI’s International Financial Flow and the Environment team, will provide a short overview of major trends of China’s overseas investment and insights into the key government agencies involved in the decision-making. Keith Barney of York University and Forest Trends will present case studies on how cross-border resource production networks in the land and forestry sector are increasing environmental pressures and reshaping property rights and rural livelihoods in both Southeast Asia and China.
Suwanna Gauntlett of Wildlife Alliance will discuss the impacts of Chinese-funded hydroelectric dams and other industrial projects in Cambodia and in Southeast Asia and the possible role of Payment for Environmental Services policies as a vehicle to generate resources for conservation and avert excessive habitat and watershed damage. Finally, Rose Niu will highlight WWF's work to engage Chinese industry on greening their international supply chains and train Chinese financial regulators and banks on adopting green credit practices overseas.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org/ondemand. The live webcast will begin approximately 10 minutes after the posted meeting time. You will need Windows Media Player to watch the webcast. To download the free player, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 5th floor conference room. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
Pop Audio:
Barbara Crossette on UNFPA State of the World Population 2010 Report
“Particularly when you go into a society that’s been broken by war or conflict or is so impoverished that is has nowhere to start climbing up, there have to be integrated programs and they have to work with people in mind,” said former New York Times foreign correspondent Barbara Crossette in an interview with The New Security Beat. “The people themselves will solve a lot of the problems around them if they’re just given the tools to do so.”
Crossette is one of the lead authors of the UN Population Fund’s latest State of the World Population Report, “From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change,” set to launch this Wednesday, October 20th. She spoke to us particularly about the challenges of women around the world and the unique storytelling aspect of this year’s report.
The "Pop Audio" series offers brief clips from ECSP's conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.
You Are Invited: October 19, 2010
Asia’s Growing Crisis of Floods and Droughts
The Asia Society, China Environment Forum, and Environmental Change and Security Program
Tuesday, October 19, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
6th Floor Auditorium
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast
David Breashears, Executive Director, GlacierWorks
Syed Iqbal Hasnain, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center
Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society
The Greater Himalayas, whose glaciers supply crucial seasonal water flows to some 40 percent of the world's population, are a climate change hot spot. The Tibetan Plateau has experienced a 1 degree Celsius temperature rise in the past decade alone and the 40,000+ glaciers in these mountains are in rapid retreat, posing grave environmental and human health threats. The prospect of catastrophic changes in normal season flows (sometimes too much, and at others times too little) from this Tibetan “water tower” is real. China's foremost glacier scientist, Yao Tandong, predicts that many of China's glaciers will disappear by 2050. This rapid melting due to climate change is altering the lifestyle and livelihood of the local population by threatening to bring more flood and drought to downstream users.
Mountaineer, photographer, and filmmaker David Breashears has climbed the Himalayan Mountains five times in the last three years. His photographs have shown the catastrophic loss of ice during the intervening years, and provide a visual warning of the impacts to downstream communities throughout Asia that rely on waters from these mountains.
Syed Iqbal Hasnaina is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center. He currently serves as chairman of the Glacier and Climate Change Commission established by the State Government of Sikkim (India). As a top Indian glaciologist, he has long advocated the impact of long-lived carbon dioxide and short-lived climate on the Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers.
Orville Schell is director of the Center on U.S.- China Relations at the Asia Society. He is the author of 14 books, nine of them about China. His most recent books are, Virtual Tibet, The China Reader: The Reform Years, Mandate of Heaven: the Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China’s Leaders.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org/ondemand. The live webcast will begin approximately 10 minutes after the posted meeting time. You will need Windows Media Player to watch the webcast. To download the free player, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 6th floor auditorium. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
Pop Audio:
Laurie Mazur at SEJ 2010 on A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge
“Right now, half the world’s population – some 3 billion people – are under the age of 25,” began Laurie Mazur on the “Population, Climate, and Consumption” panel at the Society for Environmental Journalists 20th Annual Conference. “It’s the largest generation ever that’s coming of age, and the choices that those young men and women make about childbearing will determine whether world population…grows to anywhere between 8 and 11 billion by the middle of this century.”
“The good news is that everything we need to do to slow population growth is something we should be doing anyway,” she continued. Mazur is the author of A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge and director of the Population Justice Project.
She was joined on the panel by Brian O'Neill, who spoke about a new study examining the impact of demographics on carbon emissions, and Jack Liu, who spoke about the impact of household size on emissions in China.
The "Pop Audio" series offers brief clips from ECSP's conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.
Brian O’Neill: Population is Neither a Silver Bullet nor a Red Herring in Climate Problem
Recently published in PNAS, “Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions,” reports the results of a comprehensive assessment examining the impact of demographic changes – including urbanization and aging – on global carbon emissions.
To tease out the complex interactions between demography, consumption, and emissions, O’Neill and his coauthors looked beyond population size to delve into household location and composition. They found that urbanization and aging trends will have differential – and potentially offsetting – impacts on carbon emissions. Aging, particularly in industrialized countries, will reduce carbon emissions by up to 20 percent in the long term. On the other hand, urbanization, particularly in developing countries could increase emissions by 25 percent.
You Are Invited: October 19, 2010
Book Launch: The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace
The Environmental Change and Security Program and International Security Studies
Tuesday, October 19, 2010, 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
5th Floor Conference Room
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast
LTC Shannon Beebe, U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Defense
Mary Kaldor, Professor and Co-director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science
“Millions of people in the world live in conditions of intolerable insecurity. They risk being killed, robbed, tortured, and/or raped; and they risk dying from disease or lack of food, clean water, and/or sanitation; they risk dying in storms, floods, and famines, which are increasingly common because of climate change.” These are key security threats, argue Shannon Beebe and Mary Kaldor in their new book The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace. Yet, they contend, security forces are designed to fight the last century’s wars.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org/ondemand. The live webcast will begin approximately 10 minutes after the posted meeting time. You will need Windows Media Player to watch the webcast. To download the free player, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download.
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington DC, USA ("Federal Triangle" stop on Blue/Orange Line), 5th floor conference room. A map to the Center is available at www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Note: Due to heightened security, entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.
On the Beat:
New Study Finds Lower Population Growth Could Cut Carbon Emissions
Lead Author Presents at SEJ 2010
The authors conclude that policies designed to meet the substantial unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services, particularly in the United States and developing countries, would lead to emission reductions that amount to about one-half of a wedge. These results suggest that “family planning policies would have a substantial environmental cobenefit,” they write.
O’Neill will discuss the study’s results and recommendations on Friday morning at the annual Society of Environmental Journalists’ conference in Missoula, MT. The panel, “Population, Climate, and Consumption,” which I helped organize, will be moderated by Ken Weiss of the Los Angeles Times. Weiss wrote on the Times' Greenspace blog that “the study offers a novel way to quantify how changes in human population influence the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
To tease out the complex connections between climate, population, and consumption, O’Neill and his coauthors looked beyond population size to delve into household location and composition. They found that urbanization and aging trends will have differential--and potentially offsetting--impacts on carbon emissions.
Aging, particularly in industrialized countries, will reduce carbon emissions by up to 20 percent in the long term. On the other hand, urbanization, particularly in developing countries could increase emissions by 25 percent.
The Taboo Against Mixing Condoms and Climate
Most coverage to date, including the widely distributed press release from the National Science Foundation, overlooked the study’s recommendations to increase access to family planning and meet unmet need for contraception as a climate mitigation strategy.
Unfortunately, that’s the case in many venues: “You don’t see policymakers talking about in the climate negotiations,” climate scientist Richard Somerville told Weiss. Family planning has long been off the table--Mother Jones recently called it "The Last Taboo" - especially at the big climate conferences. At Copenhagen, it was only discussed at side events; NYT's Andrew Revkin called it the "missing 'P' word."
One of this year’s panelists, Laurie Mazur, who last year published, A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge, will likely explore the environmental cobenefits of improving women’s reproductive health. In addition to mitigation, some developing countries have identified family planning as a strategy in their national climate adaptation plans.
Growth Story: Population at SEJ
Friday’s panel is the only one to consider population’s role in environmental issues at this year's SEJ conference, the premier event for U.S. environmental journalists. Given the issue’s historic marginalization within environmental community, that’s not necessarily surprising.
But there appears to be a growing interest among reporters: last year’s SEJ panel on population moderated by Tim Wheeler of The Baltimore Sun drew a standing-room-only crowd, following a popular 2008 SEJ panel on the topic moderated by Steve Curwood of Living on Earth.
More surprisingly, Friday’s panel is one of less than a handful at this year’s conference to address international environmental issues. I hope next year’s conference in Miami will draw on that city’s vibrant immigrant community and short flights to Latin America and the Caribbean to bring in more international flavor.
Sources: DotEarth, Greenspace, National Science Foundation, Population Action International, UNFPA.
MDGs for Women Largely Unmet
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Council on Foreign Relations
Excerpt from a First Take by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon at the Council on Foreign Relations:
Ten years after global leaders vowed to work toward eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality, and more, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - particularly those relating to women - remain a distant hope. Though women were a focus of much discussion this week at the MDG summit in New York, the forward movement so far has been discouraging on the two MDGs directly relating to women: “promoting gender equality and empowering women” and “reducing by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio.”
An MDG report released in June noted that when it comes to women, “progress has been sluggish on all fronts - from education to access to political decision-making.”
Data is still being collected, but early figures show the maternal mortality ratio reduction rate is “well short” of the 5.5 percent annual decline required to slash global maternal mortality by the MDGs' stated 75 percent. Data from 1990 shows 430 maternal deaths per one hundred thousand live births. As of 2008, that figure had dropped only slightly to four hundred deaths per one hundred thousand live births, nowhere near the goal of below 150.
Continue reading at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Photo Credit: Adapted from "Untitled," courtesy of flickr user :Bron:.
Meeting the Needs of Latin America's Rural and Urban Populations
There are two Latin Americas according to demographers. In one of the most urbanized regions of the world, the population of some countries remains highly rural. While countries like Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay are close to 90 percent urbanized, much of Central America, as well as Ecuador, Paraguay, and Bolivia, are only about 50-60 percent urban.
Across the continent, Latin America’s total fertility rate has fallen from almost six children per woman in the 1960s to 2.2 children in 2005. Population growth rates are projected to continue to decline from 1.5 percent in 2010 to roughly 0.75 percent by 2020. But less-urbanized countries continue to experience high population growth in their rural areas, particularly among their large indigenous populations, who are not experiencing the same shifts from high to low fertility.
For example, since 1990, communities surrounding Guatemala’s Sierra de Lacandon National Park have grown by 10 percent each year, with birthrates averaging eight children per woman. These larger communities and households have led to agricultural expansion into the park, which has lost 10 percent of its forest canopy since 1990.
Rural-to-rural migration is also a key, but often overlooked, dynamic as migrants move to other rural areas in search of new land to farm. Between 1961 and 2001, Central America’s rural population increased by 59 percent. This increased population was accompanied by a 15 percent increase in deforestation, totaling some 13 million hectares.
Although many rural areas of Latin America have high fertility rates and expanding populations, they also have a high unmet demand for contraception. Indigenous populations are particularly underserved by health providers for many reasons, including cultural barriers, language, and accessibility. According to the Population Reference Bureau, an estimated 50 percent of indigenous women in the Ecuadorian Amazon do not want another child, yet 98 percent of them do not have access to a modern contraceptive method.
While reaching historically disadvantaged populations in rural communities is not easy, some programs have had considerable success—and saved money—by combining environmental and health efforts. For example, the Guatemalan NGO ProPeten trained more than 80 midwives and health promoters and developed a radio soap opera in both Spanish and Q’eqchi’ to deliver health services and environmental education to the communities living near the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
Given links between rural population growth and agricultural expansion, expanding access to family planning may not only be a cost-effective way to help women reach their desired family size, but also a smart investment in forest conservation and climate mitigation—and perhaps a down-payment on a more secure future for all.
Guest Contributor Alex Stark:
Youth on Fire at UN Climate Talks in Tianjin
For the past week, as part of the Adopt a Negotiator program, I got the chance to observe many of the negotiations of the latest UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) intersessional meeting that took place in Tianjin, China. In many ways it was rather humdrum. I observed as negotiators debated changing agendas and the mandate of contact groups rather than the issues themselves, and made many of the same, tired position speeches again and gain.
When controversial issues did rise to the fore, they felt like more of the same old, same old: arguments between China and the United States about who is doing more to stall the talks and who should make legally binding emissions cuts; developed countries carving enormous loopholes into the LULUCF; the greenhouse gas inventory sector covering emissions and removals of greenhouse gases resulting from land use. But the dry nature of the talks concealed the more important truth – that the negotiators are not just discussing acronyms, but human lives, which could be catastrophically altered due to the effects of climate change.
If the UN climate talks fail, and if countries cannot muster the political will to make substantial economy-wide changes and greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the results for the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet will be catastrophic.
Last week was the first time that I have ever experienced any kind of UN negotiation first hand, and some of what I saw was incredibly depressing. Mitigation efforts are especially in danger, as disagreements primarily between the United States and China about who should agree to emissions cuts and international reporting and verification requirements sharpened and intensified.
But there were many bright spots as well. Negotiators are very close to making the final decisions about an international architecture for technology transfer to help the most vulnerable and poorest countries adapt to the effects of climate change and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. They also spent the week narrowing and refining draft text with regards to climate finance and an international architecture to disburse “Green Funds,” and hopefully will be able to make final decisions at COP-16 in Cancun this November 29th through December 10th. These steps are small examples of potential good news for the people who will suffer, and are most likely already suffering, from climate change’s global impacts.
Unfortunately, negotiators are already in agreement that the only bright spots that we are likely to see at COP-16 are small items such as these. Almost no one believes that there is any chance that countries will agree on a final, legally binding text to reduce carbon emissions, and negotiators have instead pushed off this decision until the next Conference of the Parties (COP) in South Africa in 2011. Instead, the near-universal buzz at the conference was about a “balanced package.” Although the phrase in reality means something slightly different to everyone who uses it, it is generally understood to refer to a set of decisions on issues like climate finance, technology transfer, initiatives to cut back on deforestation, and putting some of the decisions made under the Copenhagen Accord into legally binding text, like “fast start” finance measures to the developing world.
In many ways the Tianjin session was itself a “balanced package” – a set of interactions and experiences that was both deeply discouraging and incredibly uplifting. One of the personally uplifting moments for me was having the honor of delivering a short intervention on the first day of the opening plenary on behalf of youth NGOs around the world (known as YOUNGOs). In the words I read, which had been drafted by a group of Chinese youth, all the particulars of policy were stripped away and the only thing that remained was the frustration – and also the hopes – of young people around the world (those who will actually experience the effects of climate change well within their lifetimes if UNFCCC negotiators don’t work harder to reach a consensus).
Through the disappointments of Copenhagen to the slow-moving intersessionals throughout this year, many pundits have cynically declared the UNFCCC process dead. This is certainly not the case. But if they are truly serious about saving the planet from climate change’s most serious impacts, negotiators will certainly have to work harder in Cancun.
Alex Stark is a Program Assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, working on the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict Program. She attended the Tianjin negotiations as part of the Adopt a Negotiator team.
Photo Credit: Adapted from "COP11_lo," courtesy of Neil Palmer and flickr user CIAT - International Center for Tropical Agricultu.
Admiral Mullen and the "Strategic Imperative" of Energy Security
Top American military brass weighed in this morning on energy security with an emphasis on conservation, efficiency, and alternatives. A little climate change even crept into the discussion as well.
The occasion was a Department of Defense conference titled "Empowering Defense Through Energy Security" sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics and the United States Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps leadership. The new Office of Operational Energy Plans and Programs was on point.
Starting at the top, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen set the tone:
My friend and columnist Tom Friedman has spoken eloquently of the growing need – and awareness – to rethink our views on energy – and minimize our dependence on overseas energy sources that fuel regimes that do not always share our interests and values, while not further damaging a world that is already becoming overheated, overpolluted, and overstretched.The wider context of climate change and its security implications also found a place in Admiral Mullen's remarks:
We in the Defense Department have a role to play here – not solely because we should be good stewards of our environment and our scarce resources but also because there is a strategic imperative for us to reduce risk, improve efficiencies, and preserve our freedom of action whenever we can. ...
So, to start with, let’s agree that our concept of energy must change. Rather than look at energy as a commodity or a means to an end, we need to see it as an integral part of a system … a system that recognizes the linkages between consumption and our ability to pursue enduring interests.
When we find reliable and renewable sources of energy, we will see benefit to our infrastructure, our environment, our bottom line … and I believe most of all … our people. And the benefits from “sustainability” won’t just apply to the military.
Beyond these immediate benefits, we may even be able to help stem the tide of strategic security issues related to climate change.Admiral Mullen then gave way to General Norton A. Schwartz, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force; General Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of the U.S. Army; Aneesh Chopra, the federal chief technology officer; and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, with Sharon Burke, director of operational energy plans and programs, running the show.
This is no small matter. In addition to the newly developing waterways near the polar icecaps, in 2008, the National Intelligence Council identified twenty of our bases that are physically at risk as a result of the rising level of the ocean.
And regardless of what the cause of these changes is – the impacts around the world could be sobering – and far-reaching.
As glaciers melt and shrink at a faster rate, water supplies have been diminishing in parts of Asia.
Rising sea levels could lead to mass migration and displacement similar to what we have seen in Pakistan’s flood … and climate shifts could drastically reduce the arable land needed to feed a burgeoning population as we have seen in Africa.
This scarcity of – and potential competition for – resources like water, food, and space – compounded by an influx of refugees if coastal lands are lost … could not only create a humanitarian crisis, but create conditions of hopelessness that could lead to failed states … and make populations vulnerable to radicalization.
These challenges highlight the systemic implications – and multiple-order effects – inherent in energy security and climate change.
And while the brass met inside, clean energy companies exhibited their wares in the Pentagon's inside courtyard.
Photo Credit: "the Pentagon from above," courtesy of flickr user susansimon.
Welcome Back, Roger-Mark: A Powerful Voice Returns to PHE
“I’m thrilled to be back.” That was the sentiment that Roger-Mark De Souza relayed to me, in his famous lilting baritone, about becoming the new vice president of research and director of the climate program at Population Action International (PAI). De Souza has long been a leading voice on integrated development programs that feature population, health, and environmental (PHE) dimensions. But three years as the Sierra Club’s director of foundations and corporate relations took him away from day-to-day work on these issues.
In his new posts, Roger-Mark will lead PAI’s research team in establishing a strong evidence base and engaging new allies in the effort to support healthier women and families, according to PAI. “Roger-Mark’s diverse research experience makes him an ideal fit for PAI as we undertake critical projects on reproductive health, population and environment issues,” said PAI President and CEO Suzanne Ehlers in a press release.
De Souza captured his insights last year for our Focus series, in his brief, “The Integration Imperative – How to Improve Development Programs by Linking Population, Health, and Environment” (see also his follow-up interview on NSB). He combines lessons learned from community-based development efforts in Southeast Asia and East Africa with a savvy sense of the policy debates among donors and recipient countries alike.
This move reunites De Souza with Kathleen Mogelgaard, with whom he made key contributions to the PHE field as colleagues at Population Reference Bureau earlier this decade, and who is now Senior Advisor for Population, Gender, and Climate at PAI.
De Souza returns to his former focus on PHE issues at a time when the field is collectively searching for the best ways to respond to the challenges of climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as ongoing hurdles such as scaling up, sustainability, and labeling.
Eye On:
The “Condom King” speaks at TEDxChange on Poverty Reduction and a “9th MDG”
Viravaidya’s philosophy: to popularize condoms and make them more ubiquitous than coffee. Among his many ideas was a “Coffee and Condom stall” with the slogan, “Starbucks keeps you awake; we keep you awake, and alive.”
His other tactics included a “Cops and Rubbers” program, a “Miss Condom” beauty pageant, a teachers’ condom blowing competition, and a 4th of July “Vasectomy Festival.”
Viravaidya’s creative techniques proved highly successfully at curbing Thailand’s population growth and HIV rate. He said that when he started his work in 1974, Thailand had an average of 7 children per family, and that number had dropped to 1.5 by 2000 (UNPD reports 5.05 children per family in 1974 and 1.81 in 2000). Viravaidya also said that his programs succeeded in reducing new HIV/AIDS infections by 90% between 1991 and 2003, saving an estimated 7.7 million lives.
In his TEDxChange speech Viravaidya emphasizes the need for family planning as a tool for poverty-reduction. He closed his talk with a plea to include access to voluntary family planning as the “9th Millennium Development Goal:” “If we want the MDGs to work, we have to add family planning,” he said.
Guest Contributor Jill Shankleman:
Tracking the End Game: Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement
Much remains unclear. The Referendum Commission for South Sudan is behind schedule and its work so far has been marred by disputes between members. Assuming the referendum does occur, while most commentators expect the vote to be for secession, it is not clear what will happen after the votes are counted.
Like Oil and Water
Since the summer, the National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) working groups, with facilitation by the African Union, have been looking at key issues such as citizenship, security arrangements, international legal issues, and economic and natural resource issues, including oil, debts and assets, and water. However, no agreements have yet been reached.
The economies of North and South Sudan are entwined, particularly through oil, which is found predominantly (but not only) in the south. Oil is refined and exported from northern facilities in Khartoum and on the Red Sea. If South Sudan secedes, arrangements allowing for the free movement of people, goods—including oil—and capital between the two new states could create a “win–win” outcome for all.
In addition, if the referendum is credible and peaceful, both countries would enjoy considerable opportunities to increase the size of the shared “economic pie,” through new private-sector investment, particularly in oil, minerals, and large-scale agriculture.
Sudan is only beginning to tap its mineral and hydrocarbon reserves. Given the limited exploration to date, no one knows how big a producer of oil and minerals it will become, making the troubled state potentially an important strategic player for the global East as much as the West.
Sudan’s largest foreign investor, China, has provided diplomatic support to Khartoum and military aid, but although the PRC has gone on record as being in favor of a united Sudan, I question whether they would be willing to risk the tremendous amount of infrastructure investments they have made in another shooting war. In the last months, China has opened up a consulate in Juba and extended its contacts in the South.
What Comes Next?
Given the potential impact of instability on the troubled Great Lakes region to the south and the Horn of Africa to the east, the international community is anxiously awaiting the referendum, in hopes that it will go a long way towards stabilizing one of the world’s most troubled hotspots, instead of plunging it back into conflict.
No one knows if the political leaders, and the people of North and South, will take the bold actions needed to make this happen. Key developments that will indicate progress towards a peaceful solution include:
- Are voter rolls, polling arrangements, and election monitoring being put into place? Will there be external support to ensure the referendum goes well?
- Are the leaders of the NCP and the SPLM making joint (or at least matching) statements committing to a free and fair referendum and to good-faith implementation of its outcome?
- Are politicians publicly supporting the referendum process, and explaining what the referendum will mean for them and their communities?
- Are leaders from South Sudan making their public aware that even after secession, friendly and constructive relations with the North will be necessary and desirable?
- Are politicians from North Sudan providing their public with a road map for a changed country after the referendum, whatever the results?
- Is the international community – including the United States, China, and the other key states – singing from the same song sheet, loudly and often, publicly and privately, to encourage Sudan’s politicians to hold the referendum, run it fairly and implement the results in a collaborative and constructive way?
- Are framework agreements being reached on oil, citizenship, debts and assets, and other key issues?
- Are the remaining border issues being resolved?
- Are the two governments and the oil companies (which generate most of Sudan’s government revenues and export earnings), working together to ensure that oil production and export – and hence government revenues – continue unabated through the referendum period?
- Increased militarization of the border;
- Increased border skirmishes;
- A racheting-up of hostile rhetoric from leaders and in the media;
- Fissures in the international community that weaken pressure on the parties to complete CPA implementation through a full referendum process; and/or
- Loss of political control by either the NCP or the SPLM (or both).
- Keep focus on the issue: Build a noisy and active consensus around the importance of a free and fair referendum and full implementation of the outcome, whatever it is.
- Offer incentives and make credible threats to both parties to encourage this final step in implementing the CPA.
- Work on a “Plan B” that includes contingencies for a return to war, a humanitarian emergency (such as a mass movement of people south, or even repudiation of the CPA altogether.
Jill Shankleman is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, with expertise in oil, gas and mining industries in developing countries, revenue management, the social and environmental impacts of oil, and Chinese extractive industry companies.
Sources: Energy Information Agency, Greenbelt Movement, Sudan Tribune, UN, Voice of America.
Photo Credit: Adapted from "Sudan," courtesy of flickr user sdhaddow.
Youth Delegation Makes a Splash at UNFCCC
This weekend wrapped up an intercessional meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Tianjin, China – one of the last before this December’s big follow-up to Copenhagen in Cancun (COP-16).
Alex Starks, formerly of CNAS’s Natural Security and now shadowing the U.S. climate delegation with the Adopt a Negotiator Project, got a chance to make a brief speech on behalf of a coalition of youth-orientated NGOs, and according to onlookers the speech made quite a stir amongst the assembly. Karl Burkart of tcktcktck.org wrote:
Normally these 2 minute NGO speeches are politely tolerated by UN negotiators waiting to get on with the day’s business, but in this case Alex’s talk had ripple effects. The LCA (Long-term Cooperative Agreement) chair took the time to formally comment on her remarks, and later in the day the chief EU negotiator said, "If you need a reminder about what we’re up against, listen to the youth delegate’s statement."The full text of Alex’s speech is worth a read. Stay tuned for more on the UNFCCC and the lead-up to Cancun, as Alex has promised a guest contribution to The New Security Beat in the coming days!
Photo Credit: Adapted from "IMG_2474," courtesy of flickr user benkamorvan.
What You're Saying: Uncommon Discourse on Climate-Security Linkages
Marc Levy’s response to Halvard Buhaug’s much ballyhooed paper, “Climate not to blame for African civil wars,” has drawn a number of thoughtful, interesting responses from our readers.
Idean Salehyan, of PRIO and the University of North Texas, defends Halvard’s paper and points out that Marshall Burke and his colleagues (see “Warming increases the risk of civil war in Africa”) are guilty of similar immodesty:
I think Halvard would agree with all of this (I was a discussant on a previous version of this paper). His analysis simply points out problems with the Burke et al paper's model specification. Buhaug's is a modest contribution about model specification and appropriate data; it should be read as a response to an earlier paper rather than as a definitive statement about climate change and conflict. The headline is certainly provocative and unfortunate. However, he makes a useful corrective to overly simplistic causal claims, which typically dominate the popular literature on climate change and conflict. Yes, he could have been a little more modest with the title and with the conclusions, but then again, so could Burke and his colleagues.
Marc's assessment is spot-on, so I won't belabor the point other than to reiterate that Halvard is making a limited point about specific empirical relationships and causal pathways.And Halvard himself chimes in as well:
In addition to the issues raised by Idean, I would add that there's an unfortunate tendency to think about social conflict only through the lens of civil war. The environment and conflict literature is dominated by such studies. While civil war is undoubtedly an important subject of inquiry, there are many types of social conflict that could be related to climate change, warming, and environmental shocks. We need to pay increasing attention to conflict that doesn't fit neatly into either the interstate or intrastate war paradigm.
I believe we’re all pretty much on the same page here. My article has little to do with climate change per se; instead is focuses on short-term climate variability and the extent to which it affects the risk of intrastate armed conflict. Yet, as climate change is expected to bring about more variability and less predictability in future weather patterns, knowing how past climatic shocks or anomalies relate to armed conflict is relevant.To follow the full conversation or respond yourself, see Marc Levy’s post, “On the Beat: Climate-Security Linkages Lost in Translation.”
I absolutely agree that breaking out of the state-centered understanding of conflict is an important next step. Similarly, as Marc points to, more research is needed on possible scope conditions and longer-term indirect causal links that might connect climate with violent behavior. That said, we should not ignore established, robust correlates of conflict. Climate change is not likely to bring about conflict and war in well-functioning societies, so improving the quality of governance and creating opportunities for sustainable economic growth, regardless of the specific role of climate in all of this, are likely to remain key policy priorities.
Photo Credit: "Symposium scene," courtesy of flickr user Ian W Scott.
