Frequent readers of New Security Beat are no strangers to the PHE approach to development – projects, often community-based, that integrate population, health, and environmental programming in a single intervention. Practitioners suggest that such integrated programming is more effective and efficient than running simultaneous siloed projects, each focusing on a narrower objective. But does the evidence support this conclusion? How effective is the PHE approach?

The demographic dividend – the idea that a decline from high to low rates of population growth can lead to dramatic economic gains – has become something of a buzzword in development circles. Sub-Saharan Africa holds the single largest block of remaining high fertility countries and while headlines tend towards the dramatic about demographic shifts there, less column space has been devoted to examining the underlying issues causing these shifts or the other changes that will be necessary for countries to benefit from them.

In the Philippines, there are health and development programs that specifically target children, senior citizens, and adults, said Joan Castro, but adolescents are underserved. Nineteen percent of the population is between the ages of 15 and 19, but “they can’t even go to health centers to get the family planning commodities [they desire],” she said. [Video Below]

Pathfinder International’s Strengthening Communities Through Integrated Programming (SCIP) is part of a new push towards integrated development – looking at communities as a whole and addressing multiple, traditionally-siloed sectors at once. SCIP integrates both its activities and its funding to great effect in Mozambique.

Wildlife areas and parks are designed to preserve plant and animal life in biological hotspots, but what about the people who live nearby these hotspots? In many parts of East Africa, communities press right up against park boundaries and people have few alternatives but to draw on the natural resources of protected areas. Conservation efforts depend on these communities’ cooperation and the sustainability – both environmentally and economically – of their livelihoods. [Video Below]

“Improving the equity of women, the treatment of women and girls, the value of women and girls in society is a very important means of improving population health,” says Dr. Anita Raj of the University of California, San Diego. Traditional societal expectations of women and girls in India contribute to high early marriage rates, low birth spacing, high rates of sexually transmitted infections, and high rates of abuse. Efforts to improve maternal and child health should take these and other gender inequities into consideration. “The need to work on these issues and work on them immediately cannot be overstated,” she said.