From the Wilson Center:
Watch Dialogue TV on Integrating Development, Population, Health, and the Environment
Friday, April 29, 2011
“Many times that we tackle development or poverty and human well-being challenges…we do it in an individual sector – the health sector, or agriculture sector, or looking at issues of water scarcity – and it makes sense in many respects to take those individual focuses,” said Dabelko. “But of course people living in these challenges, they’re living in them together…so both in terms of understanding the challenges…and then in responding to those challenges, we have to find ways to meet those challenges together.”
De Souza noted that the drive for integrated development stems from the communities being served, not necessarily from outside aid groups. “We’ve seen that there’s a greater impact because there’s longer sustainability for those efforts that have an integrated approach,” he said. “There’s a greater understanding and a greater appreciation of the value that [PHE] projects bring.”
Strunden said that the Goodall Institute has found similar success in tying health efforts with the environment in places where previously conservation work alone had been unsuccessful.
The panelists also discussed the role of population in broader global challenges, including energy, water, and food scarcities, and women’s rights.
Dialogue is a co-production of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and MHz Networks. The show is also available throughout the United States on MHz Networks, via broadcast and cable affiliates, as well as via DirecTV and WorldTV (G19) satellite.
Find out where to watch Dialogue where you live via MHz Networks. You can send questions or comments on the program to dialogue@wilsoncenter.org.
Watch: Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba on Population and National Security
Thursday, April 28, 2011
“Long-term trends really are what shape the environment in the future,” said Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba in this interview with ECSP. “As we’ve seen recently with...revolution in North Africa, it’s the long-term trends that act together for these things to happen – I like to say demography is not usually the spark for a conflict but it’s the fodder.”
Sciubba is the Mellon Environmental Fellow in the Department of International Studies at Rhodes College. In her new book, The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security, she discusses the importance of demographic trends in relation to security and stability, including age structure, migration, youth bulges, population growth, and urbanization.
One of the most important things to emerge from the book, said Sciubba, is that countries that are growing at very high rates that are overwhelming the capacities of the state (like many in sub-Saharan Africa) really will benefit from family planning efforts that target unmet need.
Afghanistan, for example, “has an extremely young age structure,” Sciubba pointed out. “So if you’re trying to move into a post-conflict reconstruction atmosphere…you absolutely have to take into account population and the fact that it will continue to grow.”
“Even if there are major moves now in terms of reducing fertility, they have decades ahead of this challenge of youth entering the job market,” Sciubba said. “Thousands and thousands more jobs will need to be created every year, so if you have a dollar to spend, that’s a really good place to do it.”
For more on Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba and The Future Faces of War, see her book launch at the Wilson Center with Deputy Under Secretary Kathleen Hicks of the Department of Defense (video) and some of her previous posts on The New Security Beat.
Sciubba is the Mellon Environmental Fellow in the Department of International Studies at Rhodes College. In her new book, The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security, she discusses the importance of demographic trends in relation to security and stability, including age structure, migration, youth bulges, population growth, and urbanization.
One of the most important things to emerge from the book, said Sciubba, is that countries that are growing at very high rates that are overwhelming the capacities of the state (like many in sub-Saharan Africa) really will benefit from family planning efforts that target unmet need.
Afghanistan, for example, “has an extremely young age structure,” Sciubba pointed out. “So if you’re trying to move into a post-conflict reconstruction atmosphere…you absolutely have to take into account population and the fact that it will continue to grow.”
“Even if there are major moves now in terms of reducing fertility, they have decades ahead of this challenge of youth entering the job market,” Sciubba said. “Thousands and thousands more jobs will need to be created every year, so if you have a dollar to spend, that’s a really good place to do it.”
For more on Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba and The Future Faces of War, see her book launch at the Wilson Center with Deputy Under Secretary Kathleen Hicks of the Department of Defense (video) and some of her previous posts on The New Security Beat.
From the Wilson Center:
The U.S. Government’s Response to Disasters: Myth, Mistakes, and Recovery
Thursday, April 28, 2011
To discuss the emerging and persistent challenges of disaster prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery, Burkle was joined by Paul Born, co-founder and director of the Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement; Leonard Doyle, Haiti country spokesperson at the International Organization for Migration; Arif Hasan, adviser at the Orangi Pilot Project and founder and chairman at the Urban Resource Centre; and Dr. Eliane Ubalijoro, adjunct professor at McGill University and member of the Presidential Advisory Council for Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
“Retrieving the Wisdom of Those in Need”
Unfortunately, disaster responses often fail to “listen and gain a corner on the obvious,” said Born, discussing the need for community engagement and healing in times of disaster and conflict.
After Hurricane Katrina, for example, the formal disaster response failed to use hundreds of available buses to evacuate people, leaving thousands of people stranded in the floods. “If people were engaged, had a role to play, knew what to do, were part of a team, would this have made a difference? Would those buses have been deployed to help people?” asked Born.
Effective disaster response must utilize “the assets, the skills, and the knowledge that are present,” concluded Born. For example, when the systems in place by the Philippine government in the village of Talba failed to give proper warning to evacuate from a volcanic eruption, “it was a parallel warning system, developed by the community, that warned people, on time, to vacate the area and avoid any loss of life,” said Born. Community preparedness and engagement led to better utilization of available humanitarian assets and mitigated what could have been a much more severe disaster.
The Changing Nature of Humanitarian Emergencies
Increasingly, humanitarian crises are the result of unconventional warfare, causing major challenges for the humanitarian community, said Burkle. Rather than refugees, “what we are beginning to see today is an unprecedented number of internally displaced people.”
Many of the displaced migrate to urban settings, contributing to rapid urbanization which is straining water, sanitation, and public health infrastructure. In these settings, he said, there is sometimes only one latrine for every 200 people, new and infectious diseases are rampant, and high rates of violence and rape are common, putting women particularly at risk.
“It is a lot more than population size – it’s really density of population,” said Burkle. In Mumbai, for example, there is an average of 30,000 people per square kilometer, but there are major areas of the city with over one million people per square kilometer.
“People moving to the cities are still remaining in extreme poverty,” said Burkle. While the majority of the poor once lived in low-income fragile states, recent population data indicates that 72 percent of the world’s poor now live in middle income countries like India, Indonesia, and China. “It’s a total reversal – we’ve spent almost 20 years crafting our foreign aid budgets and policy around this…we have to start a new narrative about what we are going to do.”
“The other issue that I don’t think we hear about, but certainly the young people in the audience will be dealing with on a daily basis, are the biodiversity crises,” said Burkle. “Of the 34 biodiverse areas, 23 have experienced prolonged conflict,” which has had major impacts on the availability of water, food, and energy in these regions, said Burkle.
Moving forward, “we have to change the humanitarian community; we have to have more accountability and more accreditation, leading to a blueprint for professionalizing the humanitarian field,” concluded Burkle.
Community and Communication in Haiti
A little over one year after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, 680,000 people remain internally displaced, said Doyle. “About half the population has moved out of the camps, and there is some congratulations to be given to the humanitarian community for organizing that,” he said. “But, when you look at the statistics…only a tiny fraction of these people have reached what you would call durable solutions such as sustainable housing.”
“There is clearly a problem… why has more progress not taken place given the number of international organizations there and the generosity of the funding?” asked Doyle.
“People have a right to communicate and there is a benefit in that communication,” said Doyle. To help make this possible in the Haitian displacement camps, he and his colleagues at the International Organization of Migration (IOM) set up 140 suggestion boxes. The response was amazing, he said, and with the help of a local Haitian organization, IOM has begun broadcasting some of the over 5,000 letters received on a daily radio show.
“We need to help create respectful conversations in countries where we do so much hard work but see so much of it go nowhere,” said Doyle. Information from the letters has been compiled into reports detailing the major challenges faced by people including a lack of jobs, education, and housing. These letters are being used as a monitoring and accountability mechanism through which Haitians can tell NGOs and donors the successes and failures of projects being implemented in their communities. “Through this communication you can see what the community needs, rather than what the experts tell you the community needs,” he said.
Engaging Local Communities
“Regions are sometimes so badly devastated [after a disaster], that to rehabilitate their agriculture, transport, water supply systems, is a very daunting task,” said Hasan. His home country of Pakistan faced all of these challenges after heavy rains and subsequent flooding wiped out 3,000 villages and affected over 20 million people last year.
“Without a governance system, you cannot provide rehabilitation or relief,” Hasan said, citing an added challenge for disaster response in many developing countries. Often the needs of the people are not translated in to policy actions, he said, and “there is a big difference between what people want and what politicians want.”
Hasan offered some insights on how the development community can work with local communities to improve disaster response, pointing out that “pre-disaster situations determine the effectiveness of relief and rehabilitation.” Existing mechanisms to provide development assistance can be used to efficiently deliver goods and services in emergencies, he said. By fostering “true partnerships” international NGOs can help communities and governments should manage reconstruction and relief efforts after disasters using local materials, labor, and technologies, he said. Engaging communities in reconstruction “can be a really important healing process.”
Recovery and Resilience
“When you have a community that has been reduced to ashes, how can you retrieve hope so that transformation can happen?” asked Ubalijoro, stressing the importance of building community resilience after disasters. “We’ve been talking about disasters, but it’s important to remember how we learn to dream again together.”
Baskets of Hope is a project that aims to help Rwandan women recover from the genocide by providing training and jobs weaving baskets that are sold internationally. In addition to providing a source of income, the project also provides information about health and nutrition. With this multi-pronged approach, Baskets of Hope helps families to recover and move forward. “There’s an interesting relationship between weaving these baskets that are allowing these women to have economic empowerment and what it requires after a time of trauma to reweave the fabric of society,” said Ubalijoro.
Youth who have survived man-made or natural disasters are particularly vulnerable, said Ubalijoro. She and her colleagues work to link Rwandan youth with Holocaust survivors so that they can share their memories, pictures, and stories with one another. “Retrieving the wisdom from those who have gone through the unimaginable and having them share their experiences shows youth that even though they’ve lost everything, there are ways to move forward.”
Sources: Conservation International, Institute of Development Studies, International Organization for Migration, USAID.
Photo Credit: "Pakistan Floods" courtesy of flickr user IRIN Photos.
Watch: Addressing the National Security Implications of U.S. Oil Dependency
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Both the civilian and military sectors have key roles to play in achieving energy security as the United States addresses the national security implications of its oil dependency. Yesterday, the White House hosted a forum with senior officials from both the public and private sector to highlight avenues toward achieving that security. Co-hosts Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman and Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn were joined by Woodrow Wilson Center President Jane Harman, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, and John Deutch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The panelists discussed ongoing cooperation between the Department of Energy and Department of Defense, and Harman in particular highlighted the power of the military to drive innovation and more efficient production of energy-efficient technologies.
“‘Energy security’…reminds us that important domestic energy developments have international consequences, and important international events have domestic consequences,” said Deutch, pointing out the linked, global nature of energy markets and climate change.
Deputy Secretary Lynn highlighted the tactical tactical benefits of reduced petroleum dependence with the example of a solar panel pilot program being conducted by the Marine Corps in Afghanistan:
The panelists discussed ongoing cooperation between the Department of Energy and Department of Defense, and Harman in particular highlighted the power of the military to drive innovation and more efficient production of energy-efficient technologies.
“‘Energy security’…reminds us that important domestic energy developments have international consequences, and important international events have domestic consequences,” said Deutch, pointing out the linked, global nature of energy markets and climate change.
Deputy Secretary Lynn highlighted the tactical tactical benefits of reduced petroleum dependence with the example of a solar panel pilot program being conducted by the Marine Corps in Afghanistan:
The regiment selected to try out the solar panels deployed to one of the most violent districts in Helmand province. The operational gains were immediate: Marines ran two patrol bases completely on solar power and cut diesel fuel consumption at a third base by over 90 percent. On one three-week foot patrol, flexible solar panels eliminated battery resupply needs entirely, ending supply drops that previously were required every 48 hours.Watch the full forum above, and see also the recent National Conversation at the Woodrow Wilson Center that focused on “A New National Security Narrative.”
Aspen Institute: The Revolution We Need in Food Security and Population
Marissa Mommaerts, Aspen Institute
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The original version of this article, by Marissa Mommaerts, appeared on the Aspen Institute’s blog.
The first months of this year brought the second global food price crisis in just three years, with soaring food prices against a backdrop of bad weather, poor harvests, and political turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East. This year will see another milestone: the planet’s population is set to surpass seven billion, with most of the population growth occurring in countries least equipped to meet rising demands on agriculture and the environment. As part of its 7 Billion: Conversations that Matter roundtable series, the Aspen Institute’s Global Health and Development Program brought together three experts to discuss “The Revolution We Need in Food Security and Population” on April 12.
Dan Glickman, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, noted that one out of every seven people worldwide already go hungry. The pressures on the food supply will only increase with world demand, which is expected to double in the first half of the 21st century due to structural factors such as changing diets from rising incomes and growth in population.
Echoing his recent op-ed in the Daily Caller, Glickman underscored that volatility in the price of food commodities and the resulting food insecurity create conditions ripe for political instability – as was manifested by food riots 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. Because of the issue’s profound implications for public health, human rights, and global security, he explained, the U.S. has revamped its efforts “to rebuild food self-sufficiency in the developing world,” primarily through its new Feed the Future initiative.
Continue reading and watch video of the event on the Aspen Institute’s blog.
The first months of this year brought the second global food price crisis in just three years, with soaring food prices against a backdrop of bad weather, poor harvests, and political turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East. This year will see another milestone: the planet’s population is set to surpass seven billion, with most of the population growth occurring in countries least equipped to meet rising demands on agriculture and the environment. As part of its 7 Billion: Conversations that Matter roundtable series, the Aspen Institute’s Global Health and Development Program brought together three experts to discuss “The Revolution We Need in Food Security and Population” on April 12.
Dan Glickman, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, noted that one out of every seven people worldwide already go hungry. The pressures on the food supply will only increase with world demand, which is expected to double in the first half of the 21st century due to structural factors such as changing diets from rising incomes and growth in population.
Echoing his recent op-ed in the Daily Caller, Glickman underscored that volatility in the price of food commodities and the resulting food insecurity create conditions ripe for political instability – as was manifested by food riots 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. Because of the issue’s profound implications for public health, human rights, and global security, he explained, the U.S. has revamped its efforts “to rebuild food self-sufficiency in the developing world,” primarily through its new Feed the Future initiative.
Continue reading and watch video of the event on the Aspen Institute’s blog.
Reading Radar:
Population Growth and its Relation to Poverty, the Environment, and Human Rights
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Beat on the Ground:
Making Life Easier in Rural Tanzania
Rukia Seif, PHE Champion
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
This PHE Champion profile was produced by the BALANCED Project.
Rukia Seif is a population, health, environment (PHE) peer educator who promotes simple economic, environmental, and health behaviors that make sense. In many ways, the Mkalamo village where Rukia lives is a typical rural Tanzanian agricultural village. In another important way it is very different. Mkalamo abuts the biodiversity rich Saadani National Park – the only wildlife park in Tanzania that borders the sea. Ironically, this park does not make life easier for people living in Mkalamo but more difficult. In the park, there is a ban on the cutting of wood, making it difficult to find enough to fuel villagers’ cooking stoves. Also, increasing numbers of the park’s wild animals often destroy the villagers’ precious crops.
As a PHE peer educator, Rukia talks with her fellow community members about simple things they can do to improve their lives. Her messages are clear:
Rukia sets a good example of how doing these simple things can improve a family’s life and protect the environment. At age 36, she is a mother of three girls, ages 14, 12, and one and a half. Rukia and her husband, Seif Ramadhani, are taking measures to plan their family. Rukia used pills before they decided to have their last daughter. Now they are using condoms as a back-up while Rukia is breastfeeding the baby. Through her work, Rukia meets and talks to many people every day. She discusses family planning and if someone is interested, she refers them to community-based distributors and the dispensary for family planning services.
“I talk to my peers about planning their families so we have enough natural resources to meet the needs of the villagers who depend on these resources,” she said. “Also, when you plan your family, you will get more time to perform other activities.”
An active member of the savings and credit association, where she also acts as the accountant, Rukia is living proof of this last statement. Through savings and loans, Rukia has diversified her income by buying a sewing machine and a fuel-efficient oven. Today, she generates income from cow and poultry husbandry, tailoring, bread-making, selling soft drinks, and constructing fuel-efficient stoves. With this increased income, Rukia and her husband have been able to put an iron sheet roof on their house and send their first-born daughter to secondary school – a great achievement in a country where only five percent of women stay in school beyond the primary level.
Rukia demonstrated her two fuel-efficient stoves: one is a metal oven that she uses for baking breads and cakes, the other is a simple mud stove that she uses for cooking. The mud stove, which costs less than $2 to build, is getting increasingly popular in the community. It saves fuel wood, prevents fires, produces less smoke (a serious health hazard), and cooks the food faster!
“I can even wear my best clothes and put on some lip shine when I use this stove, because it does not foul up the air,” Rukia explains with a laugh. Seeing the benefits of the fuel efficient stoves, she has inspired ten community-based distributors and five village leaders to join the team of individuals showcasing the fuel efficient technologies.
Rukia is a perfect example of practicing what one preaches. She is improving her own life, helping others learn to do the same, and protecting the very natural resources upon which almost everyone in Mkalamo depends.
This PHE Champion profile was produced by the BALANCED Project. A PDF version can be downloaded from the PHE Toolkit. PHE Champion profiles highlight people working on the ground to improve health and conservation in areas where biodiversity is critically endangered.
Rukia Seif is a population, health, environment (PHE) peer educator who promotes simple economic, environmental, and health behaviors that make sense. In many ways, the Mkalamo village where Rukia lives is a typical rural Tanzanian agricultural village. In another important way it is very different. Mkalamo abuts the biodiversity rich Saadani National Park – the only wildlife park in Tanzania that borders the sea. Ironically, this park does not make life easier for people living in Mkalamo but more difficult. In the park, there is a ban on the cutting of wood, making it difficult to find enough to fuel villagers’ cooking stoves. Also, increasing numbers of the park’s wild animals often destroy the villagers’ precious crops.
As a PHE peer educator, Rukia talks with her fellow community members about simple things they can do to improve their lives. Her messages are clear:
By planning their families, women can ensure their own and their children’s health and can decide the optimal number of children that they can provide for.
By using fuel efficient stoves, women can spend less time collecting fire wood, freeing up time for other chores or livelihood activities and reducing the amount of needed fuel, thus helping sustain the forests for future generations.
By joining community-led savings and credit associations, women and men gain access to capital, allowing them to scale-up current livelihoods or diversify to new sources of income.
“I talk to my peers about planning their families so we have enough natural resources to meet the needs of the villagers who depend on these resources,” she said. “Also, when you plan your family, you will get more time to perform other activities.”
An active member of the savings and credit association, where she also acts as the accountant, Rukia is living proof of this last statement. Through savings and loans, Rukia has diversified her income by buying a sewing machine and a fuel-efficient oven. Today, she generates income from cow and poultry husbandry, tailoring, bread-making, selling soft drinks, and constructing fuel-efficient stoves. With this increased income, Rukia and her husband have been able to put an iron sheet roof on their house and send their first-born daughter to secondary school – a great achievement in a country where only five percent of women stay in school beyond the primary level.
Rukia demonstrated her two fuel-efficient stoves: one is a metal oven that she uses for baking breads and cakes, the other is a simple mud stove that she uses for cooking. The mud stove, which costs less than $2 to build, is getting increasingly popular in the community. It saves fuel wood, prevents fires, produces less smoke (a serious health hazard), and cooks the food faster!
“I can even wear my best clothes and put on some lip shine when I use this stove, because it does not foul up the air,” Rukia explains with a laugh. Seeing the benefits of the fuel efficient stoves, she has inspired ten community-based distributors and five village leaders to join the team of individuals showcasing the fuel efficient technologies.
Rukia is a perfect example of practicing what one preaches. She is improving her own life, helping others learn to do the same, and protecting the very natural resources upon which almost everyone in Mkalamo depends.
This PHE Champion profile was produced by the BALANCED Project. A PDF version can be downloaded from the PHE Toolkit. PHE Champion profiles highlight people working on the ground to improve health and conservation in areas where biodiversity is critically endangered.
From the Wilson Center:
Overcoming Pakistan’s Demographic Challenges
Michael Kugelman, Asia Program
Monday, April 25, 2011
Download Reaping the Divided: Overcoming Pakistan’s Demographic Challenges from the Wilson Center. Excerpted below is the introductory essay, “Pakistan’s Demographics: Possibilities, Perils, and Prescriptions,” by Michael Kugelman.
On July 11, 2010, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani delivered a speech in Islamabad to commemorate World Population Day. He announced that in order to highlight the crucial connection between demographics and economic growth, 2011 would be designated “Population Year” in Pakistan. “All hopes of development and economic prosperity would flounder if we as a nation lose the focus and do not keep [the] population issue in the spotlight,” he declared.
Hopefully that spotlight comes with a long shelf life. Pakistan faces acute population challenges. If they are to be overcome, they will need to be illuminated for far more than a year.
Yet, there are exciting opportunities here as well. A long-term approach to managing the challenges presented by Pakistan’s burgeoning population, if accompanied by effective policies and sustained implementation, could spark a monumental transformation: one that enables the country to harness the great promise of a large population that has usually been viewed as a hindrance to prosperity. Indeed, demographers contend that Pakistan’s young, growing, and rapidly urbanizing population can potentially bring great benefits to the country. If birth rates fall substantially, and if young Pakistanis are properly educated and successfully absorbed into the labor force, then the nation could reap a “demographic dividend” that sparks economic growth, boosts social well-being, and promotes the rejuvenation of Pakistan.
The Young and the Rising
Because Pakistan has not conducted a census since 1998, estimating the country’s total population size is a highly inexact science. The Pakistani government lists the current figure at about 175 million people, while the United Nations believes the number is closer to 185 million. However, while the precise figure may be in doubt, the population’s rapid rise is not. Though no longer increasing at the 3 percent-plus rate seen in the 1980s, Pakistan’s population is still growing at a 2 percent pace. According to the UN Population Division’s latest mid-range demographic projections, released in 2009, the population will rise to 335 million by 2050. More than 60 million people are expected to be added in just the next 15 years.
This explosive increase, however, merely represents the best-case scenario, and will prevail only if the country’s fertility rates drop from the current average of about four children per woman to two. Should fertility rates remain constant, the UN estimates the population could exceed 450 million by 2050, with a total population of nearly 300 million as early as 2030.
Pakistan’s population is not only large and growing, but also very young, with a median age of 21. Currently, two-thirds of Pakistanis are less than 30 years old. As a percentage of total population, only Yemen has more people under the age of 24. Additionally, given that more than a third of Pakistanis are now 14 years old or younger, the country’s population promises to remain youthful over the next few decades. In the 2020s, the 15-to-24 age bracket is expected to swell by 20 percent. Pakistan’s under-24 population will still be in the majority come 2030. And as late as 2050, the median age is expected to be only 33.
Pakistan’s demographic profile contrasts with what is happening in much of the rest of the world. Sub-replacement level fertility rates (about two births per woman) prevail not only throughout the developed world, but also across much of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. As one commentator has noted, “the twenty-first century’s hallmark [demographic] trend appears to be a fertility implosion.” South Asia, along with sub-Saharan Africa, is one of the last regional bastions of youthful, rapidly proliferating populations. Yet even within South Asia, Pakistan stands out. Excluding Afghanistan, of all the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka – Pakistan has the highest population growth, birth, and fertility rates; the youngest median age (tied with Nepal); and the largest percentage of people 14 years old or younger.
Continue reading “Pakistan’s Demographics: Possibilities, Perils, and Prescriptions,” or download the full report from the Wilson Center.
Michael Kugelman is a program associate with the Asia Program.
On July 11, 2010, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani delivered a speech in Islamabad to commemorate World Population Day. He announced that in order to highlight the crucial connection between demographics and economic growth, 2011 would be designated “Population Year” in Pakistan. “All hopes of development and economic prosperity would flounder if we as a nation lose the focus and do not keep [the] population issue in the spotlight,” he declared.
Hopefully that spotlight comes with a long shelf life. Pakistan faces acute population challenges. If they are to be overcome, they will need to be illuminated for far more than a year.
Yet, there are exciting opportunities here as well. A long-term approach to managing the challenges presented by Pakistan’s burgeoning population, if accompanied by effective policies and sustained implementation, could spark a monumental transformation: one that enables the country to harness the great promise of a large population that has usually been viewed as a hindrance to prosperity. Indeed, demographers contend that Pakistan’s young, growing, and rapidly urbanizing population can potentially bring great benefits to the country. If birth rates fall substantially, and if young Pakistanis are properly educated and successfully absorbed into the labor force, then the nation could reap a “demographic dividend” that sparks economic growth, boosts social well-being, and promotes the rejuvenation of Pakistan.
The Young and the Rising
Because Pakistan has not conducted a census since 1998, estimating the country’s total population size is a highly inexact science. The Pakistani government lists the current figure at about 175 million people, while the United Nations believes the number is closer to 185 million. However, while the precise figure may be in doubt, the population’s rapid rise is not. Though no longer increasing at the 3 percent-plus rate seen in the 1980s, Pakistan’s population is still growing at a 2 percent pace. According to the UN Population Division’s latest mid-range demographic projections, released in 2009, the population will rise to 335 million by 2050. More than 60 million people are expected to be added in just the next 15 years.
This explosive increase, however, merely represents the best-case scenario, and will prevail only if the country’s fertility rates drop from the current average of about four children per woman to two. Should fertility rates remain constant, the UN estimates the population could exceed 450 million by 2050, with a total population of nearly 300 million as early as 2030.
Pakistan’s population is not only large and growing, but also very young, with a median age of 21. Currently, two-thirds of Pakistanis are less than 30 years old. As a percentage of total population, only Yemen has more people under the age of 24. Additionally, given that more than a third of Pakistanis are now 14 years old or younger, the country’s population promises to remain youthful over the next few decades. In the 2020s, the 15-to-24 age bracket is expected to swell by 20 percent. Pakistan’s under-24 population will still be in the majority come 2030. And as late as 2050, the median age is expected to be only 33.
Pakistan’s demographic profile contrasts with what is happening in much of the rest of the world. Sub-replacement level fertility rates (about two births per woman) prevail not only throughout the developed world, but also across much of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. As one commentator has noted, “the twenty-first century’s hallmark [demographic] trend appears to be a fertility implosion.” South Asia, along with sub-Saharan Africa, is one of the last regional bastions of youthful, rapidly proliferating populations. Yet even within South Asia, Pakistan stands out. Excluding Afghanistan, of all the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka – Pakistan has the highest population growth, birth, and fertility rates; the youngest median age (tied with Nepal); and the largest percentage of people 14 years old or younger.
Continue reading “Pakistan’s Demographics: Possibilities, Perils, and Prescriptions,” or download the full report from the Wilson Center.
Michael Kugelman is a program associate with the Asia Program.
Dot-Mom / From the Wilson Center:
Is Universal Access to Family Planning a Realistic Goal for Sub-Saharan Africa?
Friday, April 22, 2011
To talk about this difficult question and present research and programmatic evidence for sub-Saharan Africa, Mbizvo was joined by panelists Fred Makumbi, senior lecturer and head of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Makerere University, Uganda; Oladosu Ojengbede, director of the Center for Population and Reproductive Health, University of Ibadan, Nigeria; and Frank Taulo, director of the Center for Reproductive Health and senior lecturer of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Malawi.
Integrating Family Planning and HIV Services
According to new research conducted as part of the Rakai Community Cohort Study, despite significant gains in family planning use over time, there is still a high unmet need for contraception, irrespective of HIV status, in the Rakai district of central Uganda, said Makumbi. Male partner’s fertility desires were found to play an important role in pregnancy rates, and compared with previous studies conducted in the Rakai district, researchers saw an increase in pregnancy incidence and prevalence among HIV positive women, especially those on anti-retroviral therapy. HIV care that included voluntary counseling and testing was associated with significant increases in the use of family planning, and in particular, the use of condoms.
To effectively promote universal family planning in sub-Saharan Africa, “there is a need to strengthen family planning services in HIV care programs, with promotion of modern contraceptive methods, and with particular attention to women on anti-retroviral therapy,” said Makumbi. “Strategies to address desire for high fertility need to be developed, especially with regard to male involvement,” he added.
Multi-pronged Approach to Universal Family Planning
“Family planning success in sub-Saharan Africa is a must for the region’s sustainable development,” said Ojengbede. “Poor commitment to women’s health in sub-Saharan Africa” has not only resulted in high fertility rates and poor maternal health indices but has also negatively impacted economic and human development in the region, said Ojenbede.
To increase access to and use of family planning, Ojengbede stressed the need to generate and sustain government commitment, promote legislation to support women’s autonomy, and implement policies to improve access to quality reproductive health services.
At the community level, Ojengbede said, the public health community must work to integrate family planning services into all reproductive health programs, including prevention of mother to child transmission; accelerate female empowerment programs; actively engage males in family planning access and uptake; and address social and cultural barriers that prevent widespread adoption of family planning.
“Traditional rulers can occupy a critical position to enact positive change in their communities and at the national level,” said Ojengbede. In Nigeria, for example, providing education about the health and economic benefits of family planning has helped traditional leaders embrace family planning and develop their own strategies to promote birth spacing in their communities.
“Universal family planning access must be achieved through a multi-pronged approach that should be colored with socio-cultural sensitivity, solid evidence, and sustainability,” concluded Ojengbede.
Eliminating Unmet Need: “Yes, We Can”
“It is time to prioritize issues that are affecting women and family planning is a very critical area,” said Taulo.
There are still many challenges to overcome before Malawi can achieve universal family planning access, including poverty, misconceptions and myths about family planning, lack of availability of reproductive health supplies, poor infrastructure, shortage of trained professionals, and religious and cultural barriers.
“Commodities are also very much dependent on the donor,” said Taulo, pointing to the challenges of insufficient funding and political will. “Failure to connect family planning to economic development and political stability is one of the main areas that we are struggling with,” he added.
“We have lots of challenges, but also many achievements,” said Taulo. Malawi has made important strides in expanding access to family planning by implementing community-based strategies and youth-friendly programs, developing public-private partnerships, engaging policymakers and traditional leaders, and encouraging media coverage of family planning issues.
“Education is another family planning product,” said Taulo. Moving forward, a “deliberate focus on girl child education” and promotion of women’s welfare can have a major impact on fertility reduction, he said.
“We can eliminate unmet need for family planning in Malawi, if we put our heads together, our thoughts together, and our energy together,” concluded Taulo.
Source: World Health Organization.
Image Credit: "Women's Health Clinic" courtesy of flickr user advencap.
From the Wilson Center:
Dividend or Deficit? The Economic Effects of Population Age Structure
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Changing Age Structures and Economic Lifecycles
From 2010-2015, 85 countries are projected to witness the largest absolute increase in history of their populations aged 60 and over. This increase in elder populations is significant, Mason said, because it may mean slower economic growth.
Based on data collected through National Transfer Accounts, Mason and Lee’s economic lifecycle tracks the labor income and consumption rates of a population at a given age. In high income countries, consumption increases around the teen years as a result of investments in education, then dips slightly, and, finally, sharply rises around the age of 80 due to high health care expenditures. The consumption rate remains relatively flat in low income countries, with consumption differing the most in the older ages.
The support ratio measures the number of workers relative to the number of consumers, while taking into account age-specific variances in number of hours worked and level of consumption. Mason explained that China, after four decades of rapid growth, has reached the peak of its support ratio, with many workers relative to the number of consumers. However, China is rapidly aging, like much of Northeast Asia, and also because of its one-child policy. The resulting decline in its support ratio will likely limit its economic growth; however, Mason cautioned that it would be “rash” to say that its growth will bottom out completely.
The United States has an age structure that is “quite a bit more favorable” than other industrial countries, Mason said. Higher fertility, lower life expectancy, and a higher rate of immigration mean that aging is coming more slowly to the United States than other developed countries.
The Second Demographic Dividend: An Investment Opportunity
One response to the increased costs of an aging population, said Lee, is to reduce consumption in proportion to the decline in the support ratio. Another option would be adding more hours to the work day or pushing the retirement age back. In the United States, Lee said that to offset the declining support ratio entirely by postponing retirement would require postponement by eight years up to 2050, and 10 years by 2085.
Brazil, Lee said, is the “world champion” of pension generosity, where pensions make up 12 percent of the GDP. The United States, by contrast, relies on asset income from physical or financial investments for about two-thirds of its retirement income. Brazil’s challenge, when it begins to feel the effects of aging (it is still relatively young), will therefore be much greater than in the United States.
A “New Lens” on Aging
Aging, Hoskins said, is not the “catastrophe” that it has been portrayed to be in the media. Supporting an aging population is “something we can plan for and handle,” he said. It is possible “to do the right thing to make sure citizens have a decent life.” The problems come when a country waits too long or does not plan at all, such as in Nigeria and the Philippines where, Hoskins said, they have very underdeveloped social protection systems and the elderly have little to no income. Mason and Lee’s analysis of the work/consumption ratio, said Hoskins, offers a “new lens” into how the world will deal with aging.
Sources: Los Angeles Times, National Transfer Accounts, UNFPA, World Bank.
Image Credits: "Elderly couple - Meiji-jingu," courtesy of flickr user Tom Spender. Chart courtesy of Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason, National Transfer Accounts.
Watch: Frederick Burkle on Lessons from Haiti and Professionalizing Humanitarian Assistance
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
“Haiti – in terms of coordination – was a debacle,” said Frederick Burkle, senior fellow with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Burkle, who is also a senior public policy scholar at the Wilson Center, said that after the 2010 earthquake, “the large majority of people who showed up were under the age of 30 and this was their first disaster event.”
As a result, “best practices did not necessarily occur,” Burkle said. “Ninety-five percent of the work is probably done by 45 of the major NGOs,” but, he said, the number of “mom-and-pop shows” and other small NGOs in “The Republic of NGOs” is in the thousands.
Non-healthcare providers ended up providing services that they were not trained to provide – even amputations, Burkle said. “We certainly relish the humanitarian spirit of those who show up, but we have to have some coordination to ensure that best practices occur and that it goes in the right direction.”
“The professionalization blueprint really calls for courses, curriculum, and best practice standards,” said Burkle. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is working with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, World Health Organization, and others to provide these resources.
“There’s a movement afoot within the humanitarian community itself to finally professionalize the humanitarian profession,” Burkle said, spurred on, in part, by the poorly coordinated responses to events like the Haiti earthquake.
As a result, “best practices did not necessarily occur,” Burkle said. “Ninety-five percent of the work is probably done by 45 of the major NGOs,” but, he said, the number of “mom-and-pop shows” and other small NGOs in “The Republic of NGOs” is in the thousands.
Non-healthcare providers ended up providing services that they were not trained to provide – even amputations, Burkle said. “We certainly relish the humanitarian spirit of those who show up, but we have to have some coordination to ensure that best practices occur and that it goes in the right direction.”
“The professionalization blueprint really calls for courses, curriculum, and best practice standards,” said Burkle. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is working with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, World Health Organization, and others to provide these resources.
“There’s a movement afoot within the humanitarian community itself to finally professionalize the humanitarian profession,” Burkle said, spurred on, in part, by the poorly coordinated responses to events like the Haiti earthquake.
You Are Invited: April 20, 2011
Managing Our Forests: Carbon, Climate Change, and Fire
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesay, April 20, 2011, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
6th Floor Flom Auditorium
Agenda Directions Webcast
Sandra Brown, Director and Chief Scientist, Ecosystem Services Unit, Winrock International
David Cleaves, Climate Change Advisor to the Chief, USDA Forest Service
William Sommers, Research Professor, Center for Climate and Society, George Mason University
Thomas Lovejoy, University Professor, Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, and Biodiversity Chair, Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment
International climate change agreements emphasize sustaining carbon sequestration by global forests. At the same time, climate change and increased fire challenge the ability to sustainably manage those forests.
The Earth’s forests, and other terrestrial biomes, have been sequestering carbon and evolving with climate change and fire for ~420 million years of Earth history. Records from ice cores, tree rings, charcoal sediments and other paleo data sources show climate, carbon flux, and fire to be strongly correlated over geologic time. Humans have increasingly shaped global forest ecosystem evolution over the past 8,000 years, frequently through the use of fire. Maintaining the contribution of forests to global carbon cycles is one of seven criteria for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) developed in accordance with 1992 Earth Summit guidance.
With a quadrupling of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentrations likely by 2100 under business as usual scenarios, the urgency for both enhancing forest carbon sequestration and for sustainably managing our forests while adapting to climate change is clear. But what approaches should we take? What do Earth history and current science offer as guidance for managing the forest component of our planet in the 21st Century?
William Sommers will briefly summarize historical and current conditions of global forests relating to carbon, climate, and fire. Sandra Brown will then describe the science for estimating the carbon dynamics of tropical forest degradation that can be used as the basis for developing baseline and monitoring methodologies for forest-carbon projects. She will provide a first person expert viewpoint on how forest carbon issues have been addressed via REDD+ in international negotiations. David Cleaves will then address how these challenges are being addressed at the Federal level by an agency with lead responsibility for all of our Nations forests, and a major role in science, technical assistance, international support, and fire management. He will provide insights on adaptation approaches to climate change, the role of risk management, and the budgetary and other impacts of increasing fire activity.
This session is part of the "Managing the Planet" dialogues -- developed jointly by George Mason University and the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program and Brazil Institute.
If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org. 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 Flom 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.
Topics:
You Are Invited
From the Wilson Center:
Our Shared Future: Environmental Pathways to Peace
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Download Our Shared Future: Environmental Pathways to Peace from the Wilson Center.
How does globalization affect natural resource issues such as water on local, national, and international levels? Can our common dependence on these stressed resources be a force for bringing people together rather than dividing us? What lessons can we learn from sharing insights from communities at these very different levels of organization?
Pathways to Peace
In January 2010, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Fetzer Institute invited 22 scholars and practitioners to a two-day seminar to discuss these questions and the deep connection between caring for the environment and caring for community. Pathways to Peace: Defining Community in the Age of Globalization was the second seminar in a three-year initiative to combine scholarship, public policy, and local practice to articulate and support global conflict transformation and reconciliation in communities throughout the world. Examining the effect of environmental peacebuilding on communities, the discussion explored how governments, NGOs, the private sector, and other interested parties can generate positive outcomes while minimizing negative ones.
Participants from Canada, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Israel, Kenya, Nepal, Switzerland, the Philippines, and the United States brought to the table a wide range of experience and expertise from diverse fields, including peacebuilding, community building, health care, economic development, conflict resolution, and foundation management. By convening leaders in environmental peacebuilding and community building, the Wilson Center and the Fetzer Institute drew on a wide range of experience and perspectives related to environment, conflict, and peacebuilding practice and research. The group used water access and peacebuilding case studies as a means to enter into dialogue about the challenges of global community engagement.
Shared Waters
In preparation for the seminar, geographer and renowned water expert Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University contributed a paper, “The Enlightenment Rift and Peacebuilding: Rationality, Spirituality, and Shared Waters,” in which he laid out the complicated, sometimes conflictual, and often surprisingly collaborative aspects of negotiations over water resources. For Wolf, given water’s life-sustaining quality but limited quantity, it seems intuitive that “water should be the most conflictive of resources.” However, he maintains that “while press reports of international waters often focus on conflict, what has been more encouraging is that, throughout the world, water also induces cooperation, even in particularly hostile basins, and even as disputes rage over other issues...there is a long, and in many ways deeper, history of water-related cooperation.”
On this foundation, Wolf illustrates four stages of water conflict: from adversarial, to reflective, to integrative, to action. Lessons from the “spiritual understanding of water conflict transformation” he says, “offer not only new understanding of current disputes, but also models, tools, and strategies for more effective water conflict management and transformation.”
Seminar participants used Wolf’s paper as a starting point from which to write short papers based on their own expertise and experience. From Kenya to Nepal to Harlem, participants shared their perspectives on the challenges and promises of environmental issues, community building and organizing, and peacebuilding.
This report, Our Shared Future: Environmental Pathways to Peace, draws from the rich dialogue of the seminar and seminar papers to share the broad range of experience and the insight of the participants. To learn more about these remarkable programs and the people working on natural resources, peacebuilding, and community development, see the complete list of papers on page 120, which can be downloaded from the Wilson Center.
How does globalization affect natural resource issues such as water on local, national, and international levels? Can our common dependence on these stressed resources be a force for bringing people together rather than dividing us? What lessons can we learn from sharing insights from communities at these very different levels of organization?
Pathways to Peace
In January 2010, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Fetzer Institute invited 22 scholars and practitioners to a two-day seminar to discuss these questions and the deep connection between caring for the environment and caring for community. Pathways to Peace: Defining Community in the Age of Globalization was the second seminar in a three-year initiative to combine scholarship, public policy, and local practice to articulate and support global conflict transformation and reconciliation in communities throughout the world. Examining the effect of environmental peacebuilding on communities, the discussion explored how governments, NGOs, the private sector, and other interested parties can generate positive outcomes while minimizing negative ones.
Participants from Canada, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Israel, Kenya, Nepal, Switzerland, the Philippines, and the United States brought to the table a wide range of experience and expertise from diverse fields, including peacebuilding, community building, health care, economic development, conflict resolution, and foundation management. By convening leaders in environmental peacebuilding and community building, the Wilson Center and the Fetzer Institute drew on a wide range of experience and perspectives related to environment, conflict, and peacebuilding practice and research. The group used water access and peacebuilding case studies as a means to enter into dialogue about the challenges of global community engagement.
Shared Waters
In preparation for the seminar, geographer and renowned water expert Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University contributed a paper, “The Enlightenment Rift and Peacebuilding: Rationality, Spirituality, and Shared Waters,” in which he laid out the complicated, sometimes conflictual, and often surprisingly collaborative aspects of negotiations over water resources. For Wolf, given water’s life-sustaining quality but limited quantity, it seems intuitive that “water should be the most conflictive of resources.” However, he maintains that “while press reports of international waters often focus on conflict, what has been more encouraging is that, throughout the world, water also induces cooperation, even in particularly hostile basins, and even as disputes rage over other issues...there is a long, and in many ways deeper, history of water-related cooperation.”
On this foundation, Wolf illustrates four stages of water conflict: from adversarial, to reflective, to integrative, to action. Lessons from the “spiritual understanding of water conflict transformation” he says, “offer not only new understanding of current disputes, but also models, tools, and strategies for more effective water conflict management and transformation.”
Seminar participants used Wolf’s paper as a starting point from which to write short papers based on their own expertise and experience. From Kenya to Nepal to Harlem, participants shared their perspectives on the challenges and promises of environmental issues, community building and organizing, and peacebuilding.
This report, Our Shared Future: Environmental Pathways to Peace, draws from the rich dialogue of the seminar and seminar papers to share the broad range of experience and the insight of the participants. To learn more about these remarkable programs and the people working on natural resources, peacebuilding, and community development, see the complete list of papers on page 120, which can be downloaded from the Wilson Center.
From the Wilson Center:
Integrating Development: A Livelihood Approach to Population, Health, and Environment Programs
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
De Souza was joined by Gib Clarke, director of development and planning at the Interfaith Community Health Center; Heather D’Agnes, PHE technical adviser at USAID; Sono Aibe, senior adviser for strategic initiatives at Pathfinder International; and Geoff Dabelko, director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program to discuss how to improve current efforts to expand the PHE approach. [Video Below]
A Rose by Any Other Name…
PHE also fails to account for “the critical nature of livelihoods,” which is the glue that ties together population, health, and the environment, said Clarke. Livelihoods are “where the magic happens with PHE.” Re-framing PHE as HELP – Health, Environment, Livelihoods, and Population – might better showcase the “dynamism and flexibility of PHE” and broaden its appeal to new donors and practitioners, said Clarke.
“A new label helps get around certain problems that PHE presents,” said Clarke, particularly those who get hung up on the population aspect. But, he admitted, ultimately, it is just that: another label. “In the end, what’s important is that…we’re figuring out how to make it work.”
Demonstrating the Value Added
To encourage more organizations to try integrated development, PHE proponents should emphasize that the approach adds value to the work that conservation or health organizations are already doing, De Souza said. “We need to be demonstrating, regardless of what we call it, the value added,” he said. Thanks to the work of field-based advocates and the steady support of funders, “now we have models for easy integration.”
D’Agnes noted it can be difficult to distinguish the results of integrated versus non-integrated approaches due to the volume of health, conservation, and development organizations working in the areas where PHE projects are located. Instead of designing research projects to determine whether integration is better than non-integration, “we need to be asking what is the impact we’re showing from these different integrated interventions…and secondly, what’s the added value?”
Scaling-Up: Is It Necessary?
The PHE model succeeds in areas where there is high population growth, high biodiversity, and an unmet need for family planning, health, and natural resource management services, said D’Agnes. Often these remote areas have had little or no access to health services: “The PHE framework is about delivering really critical healthcare to very isolated communities,” said Aibe.
Currently, the relatively small number of PHE projects are concentrated primarily in remote areas of East and Central Africa and the Philippines, D’Agnes said. “How do we show greater impact?” she asked. “PHE programs are doing a great job at reaching people we don’t normally reach…but we need to make sure we are spending our money wisely and reaching as many people as possible.”
But because they are tailored to unique community needs and environments, Clarke noted, PHE projects are not easily replicated, which makes scaling up difficult. While having a greater impact is a worthy goal, “we shouldn’t be so worried about scale,” he said. Instead of “a greater impact,” added De Souza, the development community should think about how to make its “best impact.”
Hannah Marqusee is an intern with the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center.
Image Credit: Schuyler Null/Woodrow Wilson Center.
You Are Invited: April 19, 2011
Accessing Maternal Health Care Services in Urban Slums: What Do We Know?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m
Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
5th Floor Conference Room
RSVP Agenda Directions Webcast
Luc De Bernis, Senior Advisor on Maternal Health in Africa, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Anthony Kolb, Urban Health Advisor, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
Katherine Kyobutungi, Director of Health Systems and Challenges, African Population Health Research Center (APHRC)
John Townsend, Vice President of Reproductive Health Program, Population Council
According to the UNFPA, more people now live in urban settings than rural, and projections estimate global urban population growth will double by 2030. Health care services in many urban areas have not kept pace with rapid population growth, and despite their relative proximity to services compared to rural areas, women living in the resulting slums do not necessarily have access to higher quality maternal health care. In cities like Nairobi, maternal mortality rates in urban slums are higher than the country’s average. Monitoring the health needs of urban slums is a serious challenge and these marginalized populations often fall through the cracks as they receive little attention from researchers, donors, NGOs, and governments.
Anthony Kolb, urban health advisor for USAID will discuss the challenges of tracking health indicators in urban slums and how “slum mapping” can be utilized to improve maternal health. Katherine Kyobutungi, director of health systems and challenges for APHRC in Kenya, will discuss the status of maternal health in Nairobi’s informal settlements and share lessons learned translating research into policy action. Luc De Bernis, senior advisor on maternal health in Africa at UNFPA, will discuss family planning interventions used to improve maternal mortality rates in informal settings.
About the 2011 Maternal Health Policy Series
As one of the few forums dedicated to maternal health, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s 2011 Advancing Policy Dialogue on Maternal Health series brings together senior-level policymakers, academic researchers, media, and civil servants from the U.S. government and foreign consuls to identify challenges and discuss strategies for advancing the maternal health agenda.
In order to promote greater voices from the field, the 2011 dialogue is partnering with the African Population Health Research Center in Kenya to co-host a two-part dialogue series with local, regional, and national decision-makers on effective maternal health policies and programs. These in-country dialogue meetings will create a platform for field workers, policymakers, program managers, media, and donors to share research, disseminate lessons learned, and address concerns related to policy, institutional, and organizational capacity building.
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. 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.
Topics:
You Are Invited
UN Releases Early Results of Global Population Projections
Carl Haub, Behind the Numbers
Monday, April 18, 2011
The original version of this article, by Carl Haub, appeared on the Population Reference Bureau’s Behind the Numbers blog.
The United Nations Population Division has released preliminary results of its biennial series of population projections for the world’s countries for the 2010 revision. The projections are expected to be finalized later this month.
While the global population for 2010 — 6.873 billion — is slightly lower than estimated in the 2008 revision (6.909 billion), the projected population for 2050 is now higher at 9.295 billion compared with the previous 9.150 projected in 2008. That can also be compared to the 2050 population of 9.485 billion on PRB’s 2010 World Population Data Sheet and 9.256 billion in the International Data Base of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 2010 UN projections differ from the previous series in two significant ways. First, the projection horizon has been extended to 2100, quite far into the future. Second, the UN no longer assumes a uniform “ultimate” level of the total fertility rate (TFR) for all countries, such as the 1.85 level in its medium variant. Instead, multiple possibilities for each country’s TFR are projected with a probabilistic method based on fertility trends for the 1950-2010 period. Then, the median path of those “tracks” serves as the projected TFR for the medium variant series. The high and low variants, however, will be projected as in the past. Those variants have used an “ultimate” TFR of 2.35 and 1.35 for all countries, respectively.
The projected population of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2050, the world’s region with by far the largest potential for population growth, is now 1.963 billion, up from 1.753 in the 2008 UN projections. But, since the projections now run to 2100, we can now see beyond mid-century. By 2100, the UN projects that SSA would total an eye-popping 3.4 billion, nearly four times its present size and still be growing by 0.7 percent per year, adding 2 million annually at that time!
Continue reading on Behind the Numbers.
Sources: Population Reference Bureau, UN Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau.
Chart Credit: Data from UN Population Division, created by Schuyler Null/Wilson Center. See full chart in fullscreen (Warning: It’s a lot of data - may slow or crash your browser).
The United Nations Population Division has released preliminary results of its biennial series of population projections for the world’s countries for the 2010 revision. The projections are expected to be finalized later this month.
While the global population for 2010 — 6.873 billion — is slightly lower than estimated in the 2008 revision (6.909 billion), the projected population for 2050 is now higher at 9.295 billion compared with the previous 9.150 projected in 2008. That can also be compared to the 2050 population of 9.485 billion on PRB’s 2010 World Population Data Sheet and 9.256 billion in the International Data Base of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 2010 UN projections differ from the previous series in two significant ways. First, the projection horizon has been extended to 2100, quite far into the future. Second, the UN no longer assumes a uniform “ultimate” level of the total fertility rate (TFR) for all countries, such as the 1.85 level in its medium variant. Instead, multiple possibilities for each country’s TFR are projected with a probabilistic method based on fertility trends for the 1950-2010 period. Then, the median path of those “tracks” serves as the projected TFR for the medium variant series. The high and low variants, however, will be projected as in the past. Those variants have used an “ultimate” TFR of 2.35 and 1.35 for all countries, respectively.
The projected population of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2050, the world’s region with by far the largest potential for population growth, is now 1.963 billion, up from 1.753 in the 2008 UN projections. But, since the projections now run to 2100, we can now see beyond mid-century. By 2100, the UN projects that SSA would total an eye-popping 3.4 billion, nearly four times its present size and still be growing by 0.7 percent per year, adding 2 million annually at that time!
Continue reading on Behind the Numbers.
Sources: Population Reference Bureau, UN Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau.
Chart Credit: Data from UN Population Division, created by Schuyler Null/Wilson Center. See full chart in fullscreen (Warning: It’s a lot of data - may slow or crash your browser).
From the Wilson Center:
Climate Adaptation, Development, and Peacebuilding in Fragile States
Finding the Triple-Bottom Line
Friday, April 15, 2011
Development, peace, and climate stability are “the triple-bottom line,” said Smith. “How would you ever think that it would be possible to make progress on one, while ignoring the other two?” Levine and Smith were joined by Alexander Carius, managing director of Adelphi Research, who pointed out that climate change is both a matter of human security and traditional security. For example, as sea-level rise threatens the people of small-island states, “it also affects, in a very traditional sense, the question of security and a state’s sovereignty,” he said.
The Triple-Bottom Line
Focusing development and peace-building efforts on those regions experiencing multiple threats is both a “moral imperative” and a “self-interested imperative,” said Smith. “We benefit from a more prosperous and a more stable world.”
There are currently one and a half billion people in the world living in countries that face these interlinked problems, said Smith, “and interlinked problems, almost by definition, require interlinked solutions.” Responding to the needs of these people requires developing resiliency so that they can respond to the consequences of climate change, which he called “unknown unknowns.”
“What we need are institutions and policies and actions which guard us not only against the threats we can see coming… but against the ones we can’t see coming,” said Smith. The strength and resilience of governments, economies, and communities are key to determining whether climate events become disasters.
Interagency Cooperation
“Part of making the triple-bottom line a real thing is to understand that we will have to be working on our own institutions, even the best and most effective of them, to make sure that they see the interlinkages,” said Smith.
But even though individuals increasingly understand the need to address security, development, and climate change in an integrated fashion, “institutions have only limited capacities for coordination,” said Carius. Institutions are constrained by bureaucratic processes, political mandates, or limited human resources, he said. “Years ago, I always argued for a more integrated policy process; today I would argue for an integrated assessment of the issues, but to…translate it back into sectoral approaches.”
Levine expressed optimism that with “a whole new avalanche of interagency connections” being established in the last few years, U.S. interagency cooperation has become “the culture.” However, if coordination efforts are not carefully aligned to advance concrete programs and policies, they run the risk of “getting bogged down in massive bureaucratic exercises,” he said. “‘Whole of government’ needn’t be ‘all of government,’ and it needn’t be whole of government, all of government, all the time.”
Building Political Will
Europe has a “conducive political environment to making [climate and security] arguments,” said Smith, but the dialogue has yet to translate into action. In 2007, the debate on climate and security was first brought to the UN and EU with a series of reports by government agencies and the first-ever debate on the impacts of climate change on security at the UN Security Council, said Carius. However, none of the recommendations from the reports were followed and “much of the political momentum that existed…ended up in a very technical, low-level dialogue,” he said.
More recently, the United Kingdom included energy, resources, and climate change as a priority security risk in their National Security Strategy. And Germany, which joined the UN Security Council as a rotating member this year, is expected to reintroduce the topic of climate and security when they assume the Security Council Presidency in July. These steps may help to regain some of the political momentum and “create legitimacy for at least making the argument – the very strong argument – that climate change has an impact on security,” said Carius.
Sources: AFP, UK Cabinet Office, Telegraph, United Nations
Image Credit: "Trees cocooned in spiders webs after flooding in Sindh, Pakistan" courtesy of flickr user DFID
PRB Discussion on Population and National Security
Youth Bulge, Demography-Security Dialogue, and NATO
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Richard Cincotta: Jennifer, my concern is with the lack of specificity that seems inherent in the youth bulge model in terms of civil and ethnic conflict. In other words, the highest probability of civil conflict (often protracted) is associated with very young populations – the Afghanistan, Iraq, sub-Saharan African situations. But, there is also a situation that arises among populations that are demographically somewhat older that is associated with democratization (i.e., the North African situation). These seem to have been conflated by the press and political scientists, yet they are demographically and politically very different cases. Any thoughts on how to recognize these and separate them?
Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba: Rich, I think that until we have a stronger theoretical foundation for understanding the conditions under which a “youthful” population leads to civil conflict (very young pop) or democracy (slightly older pop) it will be hard to relay the difference in these two structures to non-experts. The democratization connection, in particular, needs to be refined to move firmly away from correlation and into causation. Right now, it seems to me that we give the same theoretical reasoning to both conflict and democratization (motive, cohort crowding). Do you agree?Geoff Dabelko: Is the security community, so accustomed to framing issues as threats, internalize your messages about opportunity? Is there a recognition that low cost interventions such as provision of voluntary family planning services could be part of a holistic sustainable security approach? What are the steps that would need to happen to gain more adherents to this perspective?
(Editor: Read more discussion between Cincotta and Sciubba here and here)
Sciubba: I’m sorry to say, but no, not really. The positive perspective does not resonate much because most in defense and intelligence are tasked with imagining the worst-case scenario. Opportunities and happy stories just do not fit in this paradigm (or even most of their job descriptions). I’ve tried to figure out what needs to happen to get them to pay attention to prevention, and the only place I see some chance of breaking through is in discussing Afghanistan. Many realize the challenges posed by Afghanistan’s young and growing population and there is some recognition that family planning may be relevant there. I think that for a paradigmatic shift to occur, it would have to be top-down – the vision of the President, Secretary of Defense, etc.Dabelko: What would be the benefits of demographers and population experts taking more seriously a dialogue with the security community? Your book shows why security sector actors should pay attention to demography. Why should demographers pay attention to security?
Sciubba: Some in the security community don’t necessarily understand the assumptions behind demographic projections or other aspects of the data, which means they sometimes misuse the info or distrust it and discard it all together. I also think that scholars of any discipline have a responsibility to understand how their work is being used.Dabelko: What will be the subject of your next book?
Sciubba: I’ll be returning to the politics of population aging. I’m particularly interested in comparing how different regime types have dealt with these issues, including not just Western European states, but also states like Singapore and Russia.Schuyler Null: There’s been a lot of talk about how aging populations in Europe will affect defense sectors there, in terms of shifting budget priorities. But there’s also the aspect of how aging might affect European decision-making processes when it comes to foreign intervention (perhaps less willing put boots on the ground, stay for long, etc.).
Can you speak to how aging might affect the decision-making process and behavior of European countries when it comes to conflict in the future? How might aging affect the operation of NATO or the UN?
Sciubba: Isn’t France a puzzle right now given your question? France, a low fertility country with an aging population and HUGE challenges ahead in terms of paying for entitlements to seniors, has recently shown a greater willingness to contribute to military missions. There is no doubt that aging states in Europe will be under strain trying to meet their promises to seniors and also maintain defense. But, European states still feel that there are sufficient threats in the world to warrant maintaining a military. They are trying to reduce redundancies among themselves and increase their efficiency – great cost-saving measures. Technology can compensate a bit as well. I think European states are willing to use their militaries when the threat is sufficient. Aging, however, may raise the threshold for what qualifies as “sufficient” and US-European opinions on what qualifies may increasingly diverge.See the full transcript of questions and Sciubba’s responses at the Population Reference Bureau.
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