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VIDEO – Joshua Busby on Climate Change and African Political Stability
›April 6, 2010 // By Sean Peoples“It is not enough to say that Ethiopia is vulnerable,” says Joshua Busby, an assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Also necessary is “which parts of Ethiopia are vulnerable and why.” Busby is part of the Department of Defense-funded Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) project. Part of the Minerva Research Initiative, CCAPS is a multi-year, multi-institution effort to diagnose and assess the causal connections between climate change and security consequences.
In order to diagnose these relationships, CCAPS will use “geographic information systems to map sub-national vulnerability to climate change,” Busby says. Maps will not only include physical exposure to climate change, but also detailed social, household, and community level indicators and broader factors of politics, governance, and demography.
Although only in the first year of the project, Busby describes the initial achievements CCAPS has made in mapping specific vulnerability areas throughout western Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. In the next few years, the CCAPS project will continue to map region-specific areas of vulnerability on the African continent and will provide policymakers with the tools to improve foreign assistance flows in areas of high vulnerability. -
To Invest in a Sustainable Future, Fund Voluntary Family Planning
›President Obama’s proposed federal budget for FY2011 includes $715.7 million for international family planning and reproductive health assistance—10 percent ($67 million) more than what was included in the FY2010 budget that Congress approved last December. If approved, the FY2011 allocation would be 54 percent more than the FY2008 budget, which was equivalent to the amount allotted in 1974 when adjusted for inflation. The recent increases mark the end of more than 30 years of stagnation in U.S. funding for voluntary family planning—and herald a new investment in a sustainable future.
Over the last 20 years, the number of women of reproductive age in the developing world has increased by 465 million. Today, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that 201 million women in developing countries want but lack access to modern contraceptives. “Satisfying the unmet need for contraceptive services in developing countries would avert 52 million unintended pregnancies annually, which, in turn, would save more than 1.5 million lives and prevent 505,000 children from losing their mothers,” the Institute reports.
Rapid population growth in some of the world’s most economically disadvantaged countries poses a significant threat to their natural resources and the environment. Currently, more than 1 billion people live in ecological hotspots—areas that are both rich in plant and animal diversity and highly threatened by human activity. Although these areas comprise just 12 percent of the Earth’s land surface, they hold nearly 20 percent of the global population and possess a population growth rate nearly 40 percent greater than the world average. The cumulative impact of a growing global population, which demands more natural resources and exacerbates already unsustainable patterns of consumption, degrades the most basic foundations of life—air, water, croplands, forests, and fisheries—and contributes to climate change.
Improving access to voluntary family planning not only contributes to smaller, healthier families, but also eases the strain on natural resources. By giving couples the information and supplies to plan the number and timing of their children, U.S.-funded population and reproductive health programs have helped countries slow population growth and reduce population pressures on finite natural resources, including local habitats and wildlife. In addition, the success of USAID’s population, health, and environment programs also offers important lessons for climate change adaptation and building resilience in local communities.
In our interconnected environment, the impacts of natural resources use, management, and protection around the world are felt here in the United States. Despite the difficult budgetary and economic environment our country faces, the president’s request for approximately $716 million in international family planning and reproductive health assistance funding is a wise long-term investment. These resources are an important step toward the broader goal of investing $1 billion in these critical programs to create a healthier, more sustainable future for our world.
Rebecca Wadler Lase is the program associate for the Sustainability Education Program at the Izaak Walton League of America.
Map: “Poverty-Biodiversity Mapping Applications.” Courtesy UNEP/Grid Arendal. -
A Tough Nut to Crack: Agricultural Remediation Efforts in Afghanistan
›April 5, 2010 // By Julien Katchinoff“It was pretty much a normal day in Afghanistan on Monday.
Though only earning a glancing mention in The New York Times, it is heartening to see a response to the environmental and economic loss of Afghanistan’s once abundant wild pistachio forests. As a result of wide-spread environmental mismanagement and war, the past 30 years have seen a dramatic decline in the wild pistachio woodlands native to Northwestern Afghanistan.
“A couple of civilian casualties caused by insurgents. More investigations into corrupt former ministers. The opening of six new projects in Herat Province by the Italians and the Spaniards, which are the NATO countries in the lead in western Afghanistan. All right, not six, projects, but two or three, and the Spanish announced a pistachio tree-growing program to replace poppies. Pistachios, poppies… maybe pine nuts will be next.”
— At War: An Airborne Afghan Folk Tale, Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, April 1, 2010
In a 2009 survey of Afghanistan’s environmental challenges, UNEP found that, while in 1970 “the Badghis and Takhar provinces of northern Afghanistan were covered with productive pistachio forests and earned substantial revenue from the sale of nuts,” few remain as the forests have since succumbed to mismanagement, war, and illegal logging.
In this video by the Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch of UNEP, scenes of dusty and denuded hillsides clearly show that rural Afghan farmers in search of sustainable livelihoods have few options remaining.
The project mentioned in the New York Times is a recent foray into remediation efforts by a Spanish Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) that targets communities previously involved in the production of illegal drugs. In conjunction with the Spanish Agency of Coordination and Development (AECID), the Spanish PRT is working in over 13 sites in Baghdis province–a region once covered in pistachio trees–to help farmers transition to legal crops and restore the traditional pistachio forests to their former prominence. AECID joins the Afghan Conservation Corps (ACC), USAID, NATO and additional partners in promoting remediation projects to reverse deforestation.
Unfortunately, these programs face daunting obstacles, as pistachio and other traditional Afghan cash crops –such as raisins, figs, almonds and other nuts– require substantial re-investments of time, money, and infrastructure development. Furthermore, convincing desperate rural farmers to transition to nearly untested alternative crops is difficult when they are currently counting the days to the spring opium harvest.
Recently, eradication efforts targeting small-scale farms have abated, and increased attention is being paid to facilitating shifts toward new products through free seeds, loans, technical assistance, and irrigation investments. If successful, these projects will grant rural Afghan communities the ability to sustainably and legally provide for their families, providing long-term employment and returns for a region lacking in both money and hope for the future.
Video Credit: UNEP Video, “UNEP observes massive deforestation in Afghanistan” . -
The Feed for Fresh News on Population
›April 5, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffLiz Leahy & @popact w/ great country demographic profiles frm Shape of Things to Come.Haiti &Yemen
Good for Ray Suarez and NewsHour for covering maternal health in Peru @MHTF via @sabrinadupre @care http://ow.ly/1u08b
Environmentally sustainable rubber for green condoms inBrazil
Rich Cincotta on media coverage of Arab demography issues. Says @Worldfocus_org show must listen for World Bank staff http://ow.ly/1tf1g
Maintaining the Momentum: Nov 09Uganda
RT @PopulationMedia: @ThePlanetEarth The World #Population will grow by an estimated 8,795 people during the Earth Hour #EarthHour #Climate
Follow Geoff Dabelko on Twitter for more population, health, environment, and security updates -
Canada Flip-Flops on Family Planning, Will the G-8 Follow?
›April 5, 2010 // By Laura Pedro
“The Canadian government should refrain from advancing the failed right-wing ideologies previously imposed by the George W. Bush administration in the United States, which made humanitarian assistance conditional upon a ‘global gag rule’ that required all non-governmental organizations receiving federal funding to refrain from promoting medically-sound family planning,” said the Canadian Liberal Party about the country’s Conservative government in a Parliamentary motion last week.
Though Prime Minister Stephen Harper had pledged to include a voluntary family planning initiative in Canada’s foreign aid plan at last year’s G8 meeting in Italy, the Conservative government recently said that the initiative will not be part of its G8 plan at the upcoming meeting in Canada this June.
This move has surprised both Canadians and Americans. U.S. President Obama overturned the Mexico City policy last year, and has fully supported the inclusion of family planning methods as part of foreign aid.
Harper’s government has maintained that maternal and child health services, such as vaccinations and nutrition, will be a priority, but various components of family planning, including birth control and abortion, will not be included in the Canadian initiative.
The Tories, as along with three Liberal MPs, voted down the Liberal motion 138-144, which requested clarification of Harper’s maternal health initiative and pushed for the inclusion of the full range of family planning options. The Tories focused solely on what they called “anti-American rhetoric” in the motion, which drew attention away from the divisive issue of abortion.
The issue has got caught up in domestic Canadian politics, with opposition Liberals trying to equate the Conservatives with the George W. Bush administration and the Conservatives trying to avoid discussion of intra-party debates on the contentious issue of abortion.
Now it seems likely like that Harper will go to the G8 summit in Ontario with a foreign aid plan for maternal health that makes no reference to issues of contraception. According to Canada’s International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, “saving lives” of women and children is a higher priority than family planning.
But most international maternal health advocates don’t agree. “Maternal mortality rates are high among women who do not have access to family planning services. Contraception can reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies,” said Calyn Ostrowski, program associate for the Wilson Center’s Global Health Initiative. “For example, at a recent event on our Maternal Health series, Harriet Birugni of the Population Council in Kenya described how integrating reproductive health services such as family planning can reduce maternal mortality rates, particularly for poor young women who have the least access to contraception.”
In response to Canada’s announcement, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said that the United States will be promoting global health funding, including access to contraception and abortion, at the G8. “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health,” she said during a news conference with other G8 ministers. Britain has also agreed with this position, which has led Canadian Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff to say that Canada’s G8 position goes against the international consensus.
Laura Pedro is the program assistant for the Canada Institute, and a graduate of the University of Vermont.
Photo.: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, courtesy Flickr user Kashmera -
Top 10 Posts for March 2010
›Spring brings a new crop of top posts, knocking video king Peter Gleick down a few notches:
1. Guest Contributor Todd Walters, International Peace Park Expeditions: Imagine There’s No Countries: Conservation Beyond Borders in the Balkans
2. Guest Contributor Rear Admiral Morisetti: Climate Change: A Threat to Global Security
3. A Forecast of Push and Pull: Climate Change and Global Migration
4. Guest Contributors Cleo Paskal and Scott Savit: How Copenhagen Has Changed Geopolitics: The Real Take-Home Message From Copenhagen is Not What You Think
5. Tapping In: Secretary Clinton on World Water Day
6. Healing the Rift: Mitigating Conflict Over Natural Resources in the Albertine Rift
7. Copper in Afghanistan: Chinese Investment in Aynak
8. VIDEO: Peter Gleick on Peak Water
9. Eye on Environmental Security: World Bank Data Visualization
10. Energy Is a “Constraint on Our Deployed Forces”: DOD DOEPP Nominee Sharon Burke -
Conflict and Peacebuilding in Africa
›“Political Marginalization, Climate Change, and Conflict in African Sahel States,” authored by Clionadh Raleigh and appearing in the March 2010 issue of International Studies Review, examines the relationship between political status, economic status, and conflict among African communities threatened by climate change. “[T]he risk of conflict depends largely on the size and political importance of ethnic groups,” Raleigh finds. “Small, politically insignificant ethnic groups experience most conflicts related to environmental pressures.” The work is geared toward helping practitioners predict where high levels of vulnerability and conflict may occur in the face of climate change. (SUBSCRIPTION ONLY)The Initiative for Peacebuilding and Adelphi Research‘s Peacebuilding Across Lake Albert: Reinforcing Environmental Cooperation Between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo uses the case study of Lake Albert to explore the possibilities for, and limits of, peacebuilding initiatives around natural resources and the environment. Looking specifically at protected areas, water and fisheries, and energy and oil, the study finds that resources can serve as “entry points for improving trust-building between and within countries,” even amidst heightened competition. Peacebuilding Across Lake Albert concludes that local stakeholder participation is integral to success and recommends that donor efforts focus on strengthening communal ties, creating opportunities for “benefits-sharing from sustainable resource management,” and increasing inclusiveness throughout the development process. -
Send in the Scientists, Says Finnish MP
›April 1, 2010 // By Sean PeoplesPekka Haavisto, a Member of the Finnish Parliament, thinks an objective scientific investigation of rumored toxic waste in Somalia would be both doable and politically useful. Haavisto, the former Finnish minister of environment, visited the Woodrow Wilson Center last week and spoke with the Environmental Change and Security Program’s director Geoff Dabelko.
Dabelko wrote about Haavisto’s ideas for a Somalia environmental assessment after a conversation they had late last year in Helsinki:Haavisto is an enthusiastic advocate for environmental missions that may improve the desperate conditions resulting from violent conflicts. “We should be talking with all the factions,” he told me, to investigate the toxic waste charges. Such a thorough and objective assessment could provide a rare and potentially valuable avenue for addressing underlying suspicions and grievances some Somalis hold against those whom they claim dump waste off shore and overfish their waters.
It’s no surprise Haavisto focuses on using scientific environmental assessments in conflict settings. He is the former chairman of the UN Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit (PCAU)—now called the Disasters and Conflicts Programme—the Geneva-based UNEP unit that assesses environmental threats, remediates hot spots, builds capacity, and supports peacebuilding around environmental issues in post-conflict settings. Haavisto presented UNEP’s work at the Wilson Center in a 2004 presentation. His colleagues, including UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, have subsequently launched more recent UNEP contributions at the Wilson Center. ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko serves on UNEP’s Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict, and Peacebuilding.
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