Archive for: Global

Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000–2017. Special Focus on Inequalities

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The World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (WHO/UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP) produces internationally comparable estimates of progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and is responsible for global monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to WASH. This report presents updated national, regional and global estimates for WASH in households for the period 2000-2017. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commits UN member states to take bold and transformative steps to ‘shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path’, ‘realize the human rights of all’, ‘end poverty in all its forms’, and ensure ‘no one will be left behind’. The UN General Assembly will conduct its first quadrennial review of progress in September 2019. This report assesses progress in reducing inequalities in household WASH services and identifies the populations most at risk of being ‘left behind’.

Year: 2019

Source: WHO | UNICEF

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Sustainable Development Goals

Underserved Populations

Water Sanitation and Hygiene

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The Interaction of Human Population, Food Production, and Biodiversity Protection

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Research suggests that the scale of human population and the current pace of its growth contribute substantially to the loss of biological diversity. Although technological change and unequal consumption inextricably mingle with demographic impacts on the environment, the needs of all human beings—especially for food—imply that projected population growth will undermine protection of the natural world. Numerous solutions have been proposed to boost food production while protecting biodiversity, but alone these proposals are unlikely to staunch biodiversity loss. An important approach to sustaining biodiversity and human well-being is through actions that can slow and eventually reverse population growth: investing in universal access to reproductive health services and contraceptive technologies, advancing women’s education, and achieving gender equality.

Year: 2017

Source: Science

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Biodiversity

Food Security

Gender

Population

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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The Impact of Population, Health and Environment Projects: A Synthesis of the Evidence

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The evidence of impact of integrated Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) projects is often isolated in project reports and not disseminated widely. To respond to that need, this report pulls together project findings across many integrated projects to assess and better document what is known about the results and benefits of integrated projects and where gaps in the evidence base still exist. This synthesis report examines and summarizes recent available evidence from integrated PHE projects to document what they are measuring and/or not measuring, assess the current state of PHE project monitoring and evaluation, and identify gaps in evaluation and research for current and future PHE projects to improve upon. Forty-three documents from 35 projects were reviewed in conducting this synthesis. Findings suggest that projects report data and impact in some areas, particularly family planning, consistently. The findings also note that many PHE projects have found it challenging to collect data and thus document their impact in other sectors, particularly related to their environmental and livelihood programming.

Year: 2015

Source: The Evidence Project

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Community Health

Environment

Family Planning

Integration

Monitoring & Evaluation

Population

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The Environment as a Strategic Healthcare Partner

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The purpose of this review is to describe the growing consensus regarding the contribution of natural processes – ‘nature’ – to human health. Globally, natural environments are becoming smaller and critically degraded because of various human-related factors. Consequently, some of the ‘free’ health benefits nature confers are being lost. This is especially problematic for people in rural areas with limited access to clinical services whose lives depend closely upon nature. The “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment” explored ecosystem changes and their subsequent effects on human well-being, including health. Global Burden of Disease studies have also revealed the importance of environmental factors to health. Not coincidentally, geographic areas in the two research efforts overlap, but convincing research describing how conserving healthy environments may positively affect human health remains lacking. Establishing ecosystem-human health causal linkages via traditional epidemiological approaches is challenging. Innovative research initiatives are increasing our understanding and appreciation of nature’s role as a provider of health, rendering conservation potentially a healthcare strategy. Transdisciplinary university teaching is also playing a role in broadening the awareness of these important linkages and developing research skills to meet the challenge.

Year: 2013

Source: Current Opinion in Obstetrics & Gynecology

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Community Health

Conservation

Environment

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The Economics of Population Policy for Carbon Emissions Reduction in Developing Countries

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Female education and family planning are both critical for sustainable development, and merit expanded support without any appeal to global climate considerations. Since both activities affect fertility, population growth, and carbon emissions, they may also provide sufficient climate-related benefits to warrant additional financing from resources devoted to carbon emissions abatement. This paper considers the economic case for such support. We find that the population policy options are less costly than almost all of the options Nauclér and Enkvist (2009) provide for low-carbon energy development. They are also cost-competitive with forest conservation and other improved forestry and agricultural practices. We conclude that female education and family planning should be viewed as viable potential candidates for financial support from global climate funds. The case for female education is also strengthened by its documented contribution to resilience in the face of the climate change that has already become inevitable.

Year: 2010

Source: Center for Global Development

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Climate Change

Education

Family Planning

Funding

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The 3rd National Conference on Population, Health, and Environment (PHE)

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The third National Conference on Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) was held in March 2008 Tagatay City, Philippines. The 350 delegates focused on the expansion, strengthening, and advancement of integrated Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) approaches. International partners from a myriad of countries shared PHE methods, models, and networks. Skill building sessions, presentations, demonstrations, and discussions were held to expand PHE knowledge and strengthen partnerships.

Year: 2008

Source: Conservation International

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Community Health

Environment

Integration

Population

Scale-up

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State of World Population 2009: Facing a Changing World: Women, Population, and Climate

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This 2009 flagship report argues that reproductive health care, including family planning, and gender relations could influence the future course of climate change and affect how humanity adapts to rising seas, worsening storms and severe droughts. Women, especially impoverished women in developing countries, bear the disproportionate burden of climate change, but are often largely overlooked in the debate about how to address problems of rising seas, droughts, melting glaciers and extreme weather. The report cites research demonstrating women’s higher vulnerability in natural disasters—especially where incomes are low and status differences between men and women are high. The international community’s fight against climate change is more likely to be successful if policies, programmes and treaties take into account the needs, rights and potential of women. The report shows that investments that empower women and girls—particularly education and health—bolster economic development, reduce poverty, and have a beneficial impact on climate change.

Year: 2009

Source: United Nations Population Fund

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Climate Change

Economic Development

Natural Disasters

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch: Report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health

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We identify three categories of challenges that have to be addressed to maintain and enhance human health in the face of increasingly harmful environmental trends. Firstly, conceptual and empathy failures (imagination challenges), such as an over-reliance on gross domestic product as a measure of human progress, the failure to account for future health and environmental harms over present day gains, and the disproportionate effect of those harms on the poor and those in developing nations. Secondly, knowledge failures (research and information challenges), such as failure to address social and environmental drivers of ill health, a historical scarcity of transdisciplinary research and funding, together with an unwillingness or inability to deal with uncertainty within decision making frameworks. Thirdly, implementation failures (governance challenges), such as how governments and institutions delay recognition and responses to threats, especially when faced with uncertainties, pooled common resources, and time lags between action and effect.

Year: 2015

Source: The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health

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Biodiversity

Climate Change

Community Health

Environment

Institutionalization

Population

Resilience

Sustainable Development Goals

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Resilience, Integrated Development and Family Planning: Building Long-Term Solutions

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For the many individuals and communities experiencing natural disasters and environmental degradation, building resilience means becoming more proficient at anticipating, preventing, recovering, and rebuilding following negative shocks and stresses. Development practitioners have been working to build this proficiency in vulnerable communities around the world for several decades. This article first examines the meaning of resilience as a component of responding to disasters and some of the key components of building resilience. It then summarises approaches to resilience developed by the Rockefeller and Packard Foundations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, USAID and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), which show how family planning services can contribute to resilience. Next, it gives some examples of how family planning has been integrated into some current environment and development programmes. Finally, it describes how these integrated programmes have succeeded in helping communities to diversify livelihoods, bolster community engagement and resilience, build new governance structures, and position women as agents of change.

Year: 2014

Source: Reproductive Health Matters

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Environment

Family Planning

Integration

Resilience

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Poverty and Biodiversity: Measuring the Overlap of Human Poverty and Biodiversity Hotspots

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In an effort to prioritize conservation efforts, scientists developed the concept of biodiversity hotspots. Since most hotspots are located in countries where poverty is widespread, the success of conservation efforts depends in part upon a recognition that poverty can be a significant constraint on conservation, and at the same time conservation could be an important component of alleviating long-term poverty. This paper presents five key socioeconomic poverty indicators (access to water, undernourishment, potential population pressure, number living below poverty line and debt service) and integrates them with an ecologically based hotspots analysis in order to illustrate the magnitude of the overlap between biological conservation and poverty. The analysis here suggests that the overlap between severe, multifaceted poverty and key areas of global biodiversity is great and needs to be acknowledged. Understanding the magnitude of overlap and interactions among poverty, conservation and macroeconomic processes is crucial for identifying illusive, yet possible, win–win solutions.

Year: 2007

Source: Ecological Economics

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Biodiversity

Conservation

Population

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