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PRB’s Jay Gribble at Kenya’s National Leaders Conference on Population and Development
›November 29, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffJay Gribble, vice president of International Programs at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), recently attended the Kenya National Leaders Conference on Population and Development, November 15-17, at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi. During the conference, he produced a series of posts for PRB’s Behind the Numbers on some of his impressions. Gribble focuses on Kenya’s resurgent interest in integrating population issues into the development agenda, the country’s ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the importance of family planning.
Below are the introductory excerpts from his posts; to read the full posts, please visit Behind the Numbers.
“Anticipating Change in Kenya”
Sitting in the hall where Kenya’s National Leaders Conference will be starting in a few minutes, I can’t help but feel that there is an opportunity to refocus national attention to development…to the goal that I have heard repeatedly of becoming a Middle Income country. And to achieve this goal, they must first recognize that population is an underpinning development issue that cannot be ignored.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Kenya was a leader in reproductive health and maternal health, really setting a pace for the continent. But during the 2000s, Kenya turned its attention to other pressing issues – namely HIV/AIDS – and began to give less attention to population issues. Though HIV continues to be a plague, it is now time to return to the importance of slowing population growth, for until this fundamental issues is addressed, there will be less opportunity for education, jobs, and better health. At the same time, as a predominantly rural country with agriculture representing a major part of the economy, smaller families will be critical to maintaining farms that are large enough to feed families and the country.
Continue on PRB.
“As the Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Children”
The Kenya National Leaders Conference has begun, representing the first time since 1989 that Kenya’s national population policy has been discussed in a large, open forum. With a new national constitution, Kenya is poised to redress many of the social and economic inequalities that have stood in the way of its development. In fact, the current population policy expires in December, 2010, and one of the purposes of this conference is to gather the input from leaders throughout the country on how a new policy should be framed. I find it impressive that such a large conference is convened to ensure that a new policy reflects the needs of the nation. The conference is also a forum for reaching leaders with important information about the need to address population growth through family planning if Kenya is to achieve its Vision 2030 development plan.
Continue on PRB.
“In Kenya, Prioritizing Population…and Family Planning”
As Kenya’s National Leaders Conference on Population and Development winds down today, it offers leaders an opportunity not only to think and talk about how population growth is an issue that underlies the country’s development, but to act on it too. Whether thinking about business, agriculture, or the environment, it is impossible to be strategic about Kenya’s future without also considering how rapid population growth will affect it.
In talking with Kenyans who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s – back when family planning and population growth were a priority – they remember the messages that were at the tips of people’s tongues – smaller families live better. Before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, family planning and slowing population growth was a priority and a source of national pride because it put Kenya on track for prosperity and development.
Continue on PRB.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “King Kenyatta?” courtesy of flickr user rogiro. -
Food and Environmental Insecurity a Factor in North Korean Shelling?
›November 24, 2010 // By Schuyler NullJust two days before dozens of North Korean artillery shells fell on the island of Yeonpyeong off the west coast of Korea, a UN study reported that the DPRK was facing acute food shortages heading into the winter.
In a New York Times report, Choi Jin-wook, of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, called food “the number one issue.” While Choi just last month praised the resumption of food aid from the South to the North as a “starting point of a new chapter in inter-Korean relations,” she told the Times Wednesday that the North is “in a desperate situation, and they want food immediately, not next year.”
North Korea’s motives are notoriously indecipherable and this latest incident is no exception, but the regime has in the past sought to distract from domestic problems by inciting the international community (the sinking of the Cheonan being the other latest prominent example).
Infrastructure has always been primitive in the North under the DPRK regime, but the country’s tenuous food security situation was made worse this last year by an unusually long and severe winter followed by heavy flooding in the summer. Flooding was so bad during August and September, that the normally silent regime publically announced details of rescue operations around the northern city of Sinuiju. The joint FAO/WFP report put out by the UN does not predicate production will significantly recover in the next year and estimates an uncovered food deficit of 542,000 tons for 2010/11.
“A small shock in the future could trigger a severe negative impact and will be difficult to contain if these chronic deficits are not effectively managed,” Joyce Luma of the World Food Program told The New York Times.
For more on the severe weather events of this summer, including the flooding that impacted the DPRK and pushed the Three Gorge Dam to its stress limits in China, the impact of scarcity and climate change on the potential for conflict, and the intersection of food security and conflict elsewhere, see our previous coverage on The New Security Beat.
Sources: Christian Science Monitor, Food and Agriculture Organization, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, UN, Washington Post, World Food Program.
Image Credit: Google Maps. -
Watch: Blue Ventures PHE Program in Madagascar
›“All conservation efforts will be in vain if family planning issues aren’t addressed,” says Rebecca Hill, project manager for the Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme at Blue Ventures in a video highlighting their population, health, and environment (PHE) programming in Madagascar.
While primarily a marine conservation group, Blue Ventures also recognizes the need for integrating population into their efforts. They began a family planning program in southwestern Madagascar in 2008 as part of a “holistic approach to conservation.” The project aims to address the high unmet need for family planning, high fertility and maternal and infant mortality, and conserve the coastal environment. “We are directly saving lives,” Hill says.
Rapid population growth is creating an unsustainable strain on natural resources, as Matthew Erdman of Blue Ventures wrote in a previous post on The New Security Beat:The average total fertility rate in Velondriake is 6.7 children per woman, according to our data. On average women are only 15 years old when they first conceive. To compound this problem, a majority of the population is under the age of 15 – at or approaching reproductive age. At the current growth rate, the local population will double in only 10 to 15 years. The local food sources, already heavily depleted, barely feed the current population, let alone twice that amount. Without enabling these coastal communities to stabilize their population growth, efforts to improve the state of marine resources and the community’s food security are considerably hindered.
Hill describes the situation in the village when she joined the Blue Ventures in 2008 as “alarming,” with women “having up to 17 children despite not wanting children.” Many people in the town had never heard of condoms and had no idea how to use them, she said, and “they are desperate to have access to contraception.”
Today, the initial family planning program has been scaled up to the surrounding region and generated significant community involvement by peer educators teaching community members about sexual and reproductive health. It’s also become the first PHE project to receive support from the UNFPA within Madagascar.
There are currently 18 community-based distributors who give out two types of contraception in their villages. The fact that the community has so fully embraced the project shows that it can be replicated elsewhere, says Hill in the video. “Communities themselves have harnessed the ideas and consider that what we’re doing is vitally important.”
“Addressing family planning needs and issues is inextricably linked with conservation issues,” says Hill. “All conservation efforts will be in vain, if family planning issues are not addressed.”
Video Credit: Blue Ventures Family Planning Project from Alexander Goodman on Vimeo. -
ECSP Seeking Interns for Spring 2011
›November 23, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffApply today by sending cover letter, resume, and writing sample to ecsp@wilsoncenter.org.
The Environmental Change and Security Program is seeking interns to:- Write for our award-winning blog
- Network with leading experts in the environment, population, and security fields
- Work closely with the friendly, dynamic “Green Team” to explore new media while seeking a sustainable future
Assignments may include:- Drafting posts for The New Security Beat and ECSP’s website
- Assisting with events and conferences
- Researching environment, population, and security information
- Assisting the preparation of publications and/or outreach materials
- Updating contact databases
- Performing administrative assignments in support of ECSP activities
Potential interns should be students and/or recent graduates with an interest in, coursework related to, and/or experience working on environmental and human security.
In addition, applicants should:- Possess strong research, writing, and/or administrative skills
- Be detail-oriented
- Be able to work both independently and as part of a group
- Be enrolled in a degree program, recently graduated (within the last year), and/or have been accepted to enter an advanced degree program within the next year
How to Apply
To apply, please submit a resume, cover letter, and short writing sample (between two and five pages in length). Please indicate in your cover letter whether you are applying for a paid or unpaid internship.
Please submit application via e-mail to ecsp@wilsoncenter.org with “Spring 2011 Internship” in the subject line.
The deadline is rolling. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Due to the high volume of resumes ECSP receives, only those candidates selected for interviews will be contacted. -
Robert Walker on Family Planning Promotion and Global Population Growth
›“Expanding voluntary family planning access and ensuring that all women have access to reproductive health services is, to me at least, a no brainer,” said the Population Institute’s Robert Walker in this interview with ECSP. “I think it’s a win for women, for their health, for their welfare, the welfare of their families, for their communities, for the environment, and for the planet at large.”
While China and India dominate much of the global headlines about population growth, other parts of South Asia – namely Afghanistan and Pakistan – and sub-Saharan Africa receive comparatively little attention. For Walker, a renewed global effort to boost the quality and quantity of reproductive healthcare tools and services in these areas of the developing world is essential.
“This is very, very doable. We face a lot of really incredible challenges in the world today, particularly with respect to food, energy, water, and poverty. But if we can increase what we spend on international family planning assistance by three or four billion dollars a year, we can literally change the world,” Walker said. “And I think we desperately need to.”
The “Pop Audio” series is also available as podcasts on iTunes. -
What’s Good for Women Is Good for the Planet
›Ammi, my mother-in-law, was 16 years old when her marriage was arranged. Before she was 18, she had borne her first child, who died within the year, and by 30, she had given birth to six more. She had a fourth-grade education, and like other women in the new state of Pakistan, she knew little about contraceptive choices.
More than 50 years later, contraception still remains inaccessible for millions of women in Pakistan, such as Rani, the young woman who cleans Ammi’s Karachi home. Illiterate and married off to a cousin at age 15, Rani already has three children, and, like the majority of married Pakistani women who have never used modern contraception, will most likely have at least one more.Giving women the ability to determine whether and when to become pregnant is fundamental to the realization of their basic human rights. It is also a proven health and development strategy, substantially reducing maternal and infant mortality by allowing women to space their pregnancies. And now, for the first time, two studies offer compelling evidence that it has another benefit: What is good for women is also good for our planet.
These groundbreaking studies have rigorously quantified the effect on the environment of helping women and girls control their reproductive destinies. The studies – “The World Population Prospects and Unmet Need for Family Planning,” by the Futures Group, and, “Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions,” by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – demonstrate that giving women and girls access to contraception offers a precious co-benefit: a substantial reduction in carbon emissions.
The logic is simple: When women have the power to plan their families, populations grow more slowly, as do greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of providing these needed family planning services worldwide is minimal compared with other development and emissions reductions strategies – roughly $3.7 billion per year.
More than 200 million women in the United States and developing countries are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, yet are not using modern contraception. The results are staggering: One in four births worldwide is unplanned, leading to 42 million abortions each year (half of them clandestine) and 68,000 women’s deaths.
Moreover, the large number of women who become pregnant when they do not want to is a significant source of population growth. Read in tandem, the studies show that a reduction of 8-15 percent of essential carbon emissions can be obtained simply by providing modern contraception to all women who want it. This reduction would be equivalent to stopping all deforestation or increasing the world’s use of wind power 40-fold. Although this is just one piece of the emissions reduction puzzle, it is a substantial piece.
The world is now facing multi-layered challenges of economic distress, rising inequality, and environmental devastation caused by climate change. International climate negotiations have repeatedly stalled as powerful nations play the blame game and block progress. Meanwhile, a series of severe weather events has buffeted the earth from Moscow to Iowa to Pakistan, each one hitting women and children hardest. This is the reality that rich nations must reckon with – and commit to changing – today.
In my 14 years at the Global Fund for Women, I have observed the wave of change that comes from empowering women – what some call the “girl effect.” Making information, education, and contraception easily available offers us an affordable, no-regrets strategy that can be implemented now.
Meeting the need for family planning services is not a complex challenge. We know how to provide the commodities, services, and education that women and their families want. There are thousands of programs around the world with successful track records in every conceivable religious, cultural, and political setting.
Investing in family planning has already been proven as an essential strategy to ensure the health, safety, and development of societies. Now we know that it is also an effective way to safely steward Mother Earth through one of her most challenging crises.
Kavita N. Ramdas is chair of the Expert Working Group of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health and senior adviser and former president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women.
Sources: Futures Group, National Center for Atmospheric Research and the International Institute for Applied Systems, Science, UNFPA, WHO.
Photo Credit: “Chaco: Madre pilagá,” courtesy of flickr user Ostrosky Photos, and Kavita Ramdas, courtesy of Global Fund for Women. -
Nigeria’s Future Clouded by Oil, Climate Change, and Scarcity [Part Two, The Sahel]
›November 19, 2010 // By Schuyler NullIf southern Nigeria’s demographic and environmental problems have helped fuel today’s conflicts, it’s the north’s issues that may feed the conflicts of tomorrow.
Nigeria’s lack of development and poor governance is not exclusive to the delta region, only more well-known because its oil reserves. The north of the country, which is predominately Muslim and accounts for more than half of Nigeria’s population, faces many of the same problems of environmental degradation, lack of jobs, and inadequate infrastructure. Northern Nigeria is also growing much faster than the south, with a total fertility rate of 6.6 children per woman, compared to 4.6 in the southern states. The median age of first-time mothers in northern Nigeria is only 18 years old.Nigeria holds nearly a fifth of the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa. By 2050, it’s expected to pass Indonesia, Brazil, and Bangladesh and take its place among the top five most populous countries in the world, according to UN estimates. But a litany of outstanding and new development, security, and environmental issues – both in the long-troubled Niger delta in the south and the newly inflamed north – present a real threat to one West Africa’s most critical countries.
If southern Nigeria’s demographic and environmental problems have helped fuel today’s conflicts, it’s the north’s issues that may feed the conflicts of tomorrow.
Nigeria’s lack of development and poor governance is not exclusive to the delta region, only more well-known because its oil reserves. The north of the country, which is predominately Muslim and accounts for more than half of Nigeria’s population, faces many of the same problems of environmental degradation, lack of jobs, and inadequate infrastructure. Northern Nigeria is also growing much faster than the south, with a total fertility rate of 6.6 children per woman, compared to 4.6 in the southern states. The median age of first-time mothers in northern Nigeria is only 18 years old.
Climate, Culture, and Discontent in the North
Last summer, in an offensive that stretched across four northern states, a hardline Islamist group called Boko Haram emerged suddenly to challenge the government, attacking police stations, barracks, and churches in escalating violence that claimed more than 700 lives, according to The Guardian. The government responded with a brutal crackdown, but recent targeted killings and a prison break seem to indicate the group is back.
Perhaps most distressingly, Boko Haram appears to have won some local support. Said one local cloth trader to The New York Times in an interview this October, “It’s the government’s fault. Our representatives and our government, they are not sincere. What one person acquires is enough to care for a massive amount of people.”
As in the south, mismanagement of natural resources has also played a role in creating a dangerous atmosphere of distrust in the government. After gold was discovered this spring in northwestern Nigeria, many under- and unemployed flocked to the region to try their luck, but they also unwittingly contaminated local water with high levels of lead. Although the state health officials say they have now identified more than 180 villages thought to be affected, the epidemic was only discovered after a French NGO stumbled upon it while testing for meningitis in June. More than 400 infant deaths have been connected to the mining, according to Reuters.
Contributing to natural resource-related misery in the north are climatic changes. Declining rainfall in the West African Sahel over the last century has pushed rain belts successively south, driving pastoralists into areas often already occupied. According to Anthony Nyong’s work, presented in ECSP Report 12, these changes have elevated competition over natural resources to the single most common cause of conflict in northern Nigeria in recent years.In addition to the long-term trend of declining rainfall, an acute drought in 2009 and another this year in neighboring Niger and Chad have created the worst food security crisis in 30 years. The droughts have also driven a great deal of cross-border migration into Nigeria, which itself saw lower than usual rainfall in the north, especially the northeast, around the ever-disappearing Lake Chad (see map above for resulting migration patterns).
What rain did fall in the border areas fell suddenly and torrentially, causing rampant flooding that affected two million people. The floods not only caused physical damage but also came just before harvest season, destroying many crops and further reducing food security. Made more vulnerable by the number of displaced people and flooding, the area was then hit with its worst cholera outbreak in years, which has killed 1,500 people so far and spread south.
Cholera is not the only preventable disease to flourish in northern Nigeria in recent years. In 2003, cleric-driven fear of a U.S. plot to reduce fertility in Muslim women caused the widespread boycott of a UN-led polio vaccination drive. The fast-spreading disease then emerged in six of Nigeria’s neighbors where the disease had previously been eradicated. The northern states today remain the only consistently polio-endemic area in Africa, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
“A Stable Nigeria Is a Stable Africa”
Nigeria’s size and its wealth of natural resources make it a strategically important country for the future of the region. “A stable Nigeria is a stable Africa,” said Wilson Center scholar and former NEITI officer Uche Igwe in an interview. “Nigeria is 150 million people and the minute Nigeria becomes unstable, the West Africa sub-region will be engulfed.”
While there have been some strides in recent years in reducing corruption and addressing infrastructure needs (for example, NEITI’s work to promote revenue transparency), the development, health, environmental security, and human security situations remain dire in many parts of the country. With one of the fastest growing populations in the world and severe environmental problems in both the north and the south, scarcity will almost certainly be a challenge that Nigeria will have to face in the coming years. How the government responds to these challenges moving forward is therefore critical.
In 2008, in response to high oil prices, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced his intentions to send military aid to help combat Niger Delta militants. The statement was met with dismay from humanitarian organizations and caused the collapse of a ceasefire (which was then resumed for a time and now seems to be falling apart again). Brown was forced to backtrack into simply offering training support to Nigerian security forces.
In terms of U.S. assistance, USAID requested $560 million for Nigeria in FY 2010 – 75 percent of which is allocated towards HIV/AIDS – and the U.S. military has engaged in joint exercises with Nigerian forces. But so far, little has been done to integrate U.S. aid in a cohesive manner. Given the breadth of these issues, such integration is crucial.
“We need partners, like the United States and Europe, who have a stake in stability – in Nigeria, the Niger Delta, the Gulf of Guinea, and the world,” Igwe said. It remains to be seen what the Nigerian reaction would be to an offer of aid from the West that addresses not only the country’s security issues but also its myriad other problems, in a substantial and integrated fashion.
Part one on Nigeria’s future – The Delta – addresses oil, insurgency, and the environment in the south.
Sources: AFP, AFRICOM, AP, BBC, Global Polio Eradication Initiative, The Guardian, Independent, The New York Times, ReliefWeb, Reuters, SaharaReporters, USAID.
Photo Credit: “The Ranch,” courtesy of flickr user Gareth-Davies, and “Niger and Nigeria: Food security drives population movement,” courtesy of the U.S. State Department. -
Nigeria’s Future Clouded by Oil, Climate Change, and Scarcity [Part One, The Delta]
›November 18, 2010 // By Schuyler NullNigeria holds nearly a fifth of the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa. By 2050, it’s expected to pass Indonesia, Brazil, and Bangladesh and take its place among the top five most populous countries in the world, according to UN estimates. But a litany of outstanding and new development, security, and environmental issues – both in the long-troubled Niger Delta in the south and the newly inflamed north – present a real threat to one of West Africa’s most critical countries.
A 400-Year CurseNigeria collected $46 billion in oil revenue during FY 2009, trailing only Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Despite their country’s mineral wealth, however, roughly 70 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, with the oil-producing south facing particularly abject deficiencies.
“I have never worked in an area as bereft as the Niger Delta – it is shockingly undeveloped,” said former Wilson Center fellow Deirdre Lapin, in a phone interview with ECSP (listen to the audio embedded above for the full interview). Lapin worked in community development for Shell in Nigeria from 1997-2003 and also spent time at USAID and UNICEF. “Compared to everywhere else I have been, it is without question the most neglected and the least advanced in terms of general development and welfare for the ordinary person,” she said.
According to the UN, the Niger Delta accounts for upwards of 80 percent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and about 70 percent of total government revenues. Instead of benefiting from its mineral wealth, the delta has suffered tremendous environmental damage that has spurred a grassroots anti-oil (and later anti-government) insurgency. During the oil companies’ drilling drive in the 1970s, it was not uncommon to see large amounts of tar collected on the roots of mangroves and the sides of creeks, and oil slicks were frequent, Lapin said.
The environmental situation in the delta improved as production plateaued, but due to oil theft, poor maintenance, and derelict equipment and pipelines scattered across the delta, spills continue. According to The New York Times, by some estimates, the delta has endured the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every year, for the last 50 years. But there has never been an impartial, empirically based environmental study of the impact of the oil and gas industry on the delta, Lapin said, which would be an important step forward. (A UNEP study is currently underway but has already been criticized for alleged inaccuracy.)
Southern Nigeria’s infamous duality – miserable lack of infrastructure, services, and security in the midst of abundant natural resources – helped give rise to the term “resource curse” among development specialists, a term which has since been applied to similar situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, and even Afghanistan. Lapin pointed out that in the eastern part of the delta, the resource curse actually goes back 400 years, to the slave trade and palm oil.
“Blood Oil” and Scarcity in the Delta
The sophisticated insurgency in the delta began as a response to the oil and gas industry, but has in many ways become dependent on it. Groups of armed “boys” – some of whom are remnants of political-intimidation efforts during the 2003 elections – have become notorious in the delta and abroad, often putting on shows for the media. Some of these groups are loosely organized under the moniker MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), with the stated intent of driving the oil companies out of the delta in response to environmental destruction and lack of revenue sharing, but others simply profit through extortion, racketeering, and oil theft (also known as “bunkering”). At the peak of their activities, insurgent activity has cut oil production between 25 and 35 percent, Lapin said, prompting oil companies to move further and further off-shore in recent years.With unemployment in the delta at 90 percent by some estimates, militancy has become a viable way of life for many. Bunkering can net up to $60 million a day, according to a BBC report. The practice, which former president Umaru Yar’Adua called Nigeria’s “blood oil,” costs the government up to $5 billion annually, and many gangs are rumored to have political connections that protect them in exchange for their services.
Contributing to the delta’s propensity for conflict is the region’s demography.
“There are probably 120 mutually unintelligible languages and dialects that are spoken [in the Niger Delta] and 40 major identifiable ethnic groups,” Lapin said. Because of the number of creeks and lack of infrastructure, the region’s 20 million inhabitants are fractured into many small communities – roughly 80 percent are under 1,500 people, according to Lapin. In addition to its splintered social structure, population growth and years of conflict have left a mass of unemployed delta residents who have adopted a “siege mentality,” as a UN report puts it (a feeling especially prevalent among the young). With three percent population growth and local fish and agriculture sectors on the decline, it is likely the Niger Delta will face increased scarcity in the coming years, further fueling discontent.
“What is truly needed in order to put Nigeria on a solid footing for the future is a government with very clear objectives for the economic and social development of the country, putting those forward as the priorities, changing the style in which governance is taking place today,” Lapin said. “And that will require something of a revolution, a major sea-change.”
Part two on Nigeria’s future – The Sahel – addresses conflict, scarcity, and demographics in the northern part of the country and concludes with recommendations for the future.
Sources: BBC, CIA, Energy Information Agency, The Guardian, The New York Times, Population Reference Bureau, Reuters, UN.
Photo Credit: “Niger Delta oil disaster,” courtesy of flickr user Sosialistisk Ungdom – SU, and a NASA Space Shuttle Overflight photo of the Niger Delta, courtesy of NASA.
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