The USAID-funded Building Capacity for Integrated Family Planning (FP)/Reproductive Health (RH) and Population, Environment and Development (PED) Action (BUILD) project is bringing together key actors from government and civil society organisations (CSOs) in Côte d’Ivoire for a SMART Advocacy workshop.
The workshop aims to enhance their analytical and methodological skills needed to support integration of population, health, environment and development (PHED) approaches in the national climate change policy planning and implementation. The country is among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts, with projected economic impacts to be in hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades. Research shows that use of voluntary family planning has multiple benefits for environmental sustainability, including enhancing the resilience of individuals, households and communities to the negative effects of climate change. The PHED approach articulates cross sectoral pathways to support countries and communities in tackling interlinked development challenges such as rapid population growth, poor health outcomes and environmental degradation, all of which are compounded by climate change.
It is expected this workshop will produce an advocacy implementation plan detailing the PHED integration pathways in national climate action. The successful outcome from this SMART Advocacy will provide lessons for other countries to emulate.
