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How Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services is Key to the MDGs
September 1, 2005
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) offer precise targets for reducing poverty and promoting global development, but they remain incomplete if they do not build from and incorporate the objectives of other major international agreements, particularly those reached at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing). At the 2005 World Summit and in the years leading to the 2015 milestone, the sexual and reproductive health community is taking every opportunity to advance this message: universal access to sexual and reproductive health services is essential to achieving the MDGs.
Contraceptive Use Helps Reduce the Incidence of Abortion
August 1, 2005
Nearly 80 million unintended pregnancies occur worldwide every year. More than half of these pregnancies end in abortion, often in countries where abortion is illegal and access to contraception is limited. Access to voluntary family planning services, including contraception, is essential in helping to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and, consequently, the incidence of abortion.
How Population Growth Affects Hunger in the Developing World
August 1, 2005
More than 850 million people worldwide are classified as undernourished, many of whom suffer from chronic hunger (also known as food insecurity). Rapid population growth is intensifying food insecurity in parts of the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where some countries' populations are doubling and tripling every 30-50 years. Greater investments in voluntary family planning programs and supplies, including contraceptives, are urgently required to meet the needs of more than 200 million women worldwide who wish to delay or end their childbearing but do not have access to modern and effective contraceptive methods.
Legislative and Policy Update
June 21, 2005
Toward 7 Billion: Why World Population is Still Growing
May 2, 2005
The world's population more than doubled in the last half-century and still is increasing. Absent an unexpected dramatic shift in family size or catastrophic increases in death rates, it could add 2.5 billion people before peaking. Worldwide, the largest group of young people ever is entering their reproductive years, requiring an expansion of family planning services to enable more couples to have the smaller families and later pregnancies they desire. In the long term, this will contribute to individual and family well-being, a slowdown in population growth and sustainable economic development.
Finding Balance - Forests and Family Planning in Madagascar
April 1, 2005
Filmed in Madagascar, this 9-minute documentary explores the linkages between population growth and environmental destruction in one of the world's most biologically unique places. Finding Balance profiles Voahary Salama, a local organization working to preserve the island's rainforest by integrating health and family planning into conservation efforts. This innovative approach to conservation and development addresses the needs of women in remote rural areas while offering hope for the sustainability of critical ecosystems and the biodiversity they shelter.
40 Years of U.S. International Family Planning
January 3, 2005
Brochure with images and timeline from a reception and exhibition of photographs commemorating the 40th anniversary of U.S. funding for international family planning programs.
Access Denied - U.S. Restrictions on International Family Planning
January 3, 2005
The Global Gag Rule was reinstated by President George W. Bush on his first day in office in January 2001. Officially termed the Mexico City Policy, these restrictions mandate that no U.S. family planning assistance can be provided to foreign NGOs that use funding from any other source to: perform abortions in cases other than a threat to the woman's life, rape or incest; provide counseling and referral for abortion; or lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their country.
Are Nations Meeting Commitments to Fund Reproductive Health?
December 1, 2004
In 1994, at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, 179 nations endorsed an approach to improving reproductive health based on meeting individual needs and respecting human rights. They pledged to share the costs needed to make basic reproductive health care available to all who need it by 2015. Today, however, most donor and developing countries still fall short of paying their fair share.
How Donor Countries Fall Short of Meeting Reproductive Health
December 1, 2004
At the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, the international community pledged to share the costs of reproductive health care in developing countries, estimated at US$18.5 billion annually by the year 2005. Donor nations committed to provide one-third of this total, or $6.1 billion. Donors still fall far short of this pledge, once inflation is taken into account, and actual resource needs are dramatically higher today.
