Archive for: Family Planning

Family Planning as a Contributor to Environmental Sustainability: Weighing the Evidence

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The purpose of this review is to highlight recent evidence that family planning, readily accessible to all who seek it and exercised as a human right, can contribute to environmental sustainability. As global concern increases about the health of our planet, better understanding of the role family planning programs play in maintaining a sustainable environment could bolster public and policymaker support for access to family planning.

Year: 2018

Source: Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology

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Conservation

Family Planning

Population

Women's Empowerment

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Family Planning and the Samburu: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Thoughts of Men on a Population Health and Environment Programme in Rural Kenya

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Population Health and Environment (PHE) strategies are argued to improve ecosystem and human health by addressing family size and its effects on natural resource use, food security, and reproductive health. This study investigates men’s views on a PHE family planning (FP) programme delivered among the pastoral Samburu tribe in rural northern Kenya. Three focus group discussions and nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 Samburu men. These discussions revealed support for environmentally-sensitised family planning promotion. Men highlighted their dependency on natural resources and challenges faced in providing for large families and maintaining livestock during drought. These practices were said to lead to natural resource exhaustion, environmental degradation, and wildlife dispersal, undermining key economic benefits of environmental and wildlife conservation. Relating family size to the environment is a compelling strategy to improve support for FP among Samburu men. Kenyan policy-makers should consider integrating community-based PHE strategies among underserved pastoral groups living in fragile ecosystems.

Year: 2017

Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

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Agribusiness

Climate Change

Conservation

Family Planning

Maternal and Child Health

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Family Planning and the Environment: Connected Through Human and Community Well-Being

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This issue of Outlook examines the relationships between family planning and the environment, including key lessons learned from integrated or linked family planning and conservation interventions. The author targets family planning practitioners who are seeking new ways of reframing a fundamental issue – how family planning and the environment relate within the context of well-being and promoting social equity. Case studies from projects in the Philippines and Uganda demonstrate the possibilities and challenges of operationally linking family planning and environmental interventions on the ground.

Year: 2010

Source: PATH | Outlook

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Conservation

Family Planning

Integration

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Family Planning and Kenya’s Progress Towards the Sustainable Development Goals

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Family planning is a cross-cutting intervention that can accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Kenya, family planning is a best buy that contributes to the nation’s growth and creates a path towards achieving the SDGs and Kenya’s Vision 2030. Developed in partnership with the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) and with generous support from USAID Kenya and East Africa through the Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health (PACE) Project, PRB has created a short video that demonstrates how family planning contributes to Kenya’s progress across all five SDG themes of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships. The video will be shared with policymakers throughout Kenya to enhance their understanding of the importance of family planning to realizing the SDGs.

Year: 2017

Source: Population Reference Bureau

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Advocacy

Family Planning

Sustainable Development Goals

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Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability: Assessing the Science

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This report explores whether there a scientific evidence base demonstrating that the use of family planning contributes to environmental sustainability. The Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability Assessment (FPESA) conducted a two-year collaborative review of more than 900 peer-reviewed research papers from around the world published from 2005 through early 2016. The findings generally affirm that the influence of voluntary family planning on environmental problems is both real and constructive. FPESA identified considerable evidence supporting—and very little refuting—that voluntary family planning promotes environmental benefits and that expanding access to it can help bring about an environmentally sustainable world that meets human needs. The report also concludes that the diversity of researchers interested in the family-planning connection to the environment is high. The report features the project’s findings, perspectives on major related issues by eight authors, and an annotated bibliography containing assessments of 50 of the most compelling papers relevant to the linkage.

Year: 2016

Source: Worldwatch Institute

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Conservation

Family Planning

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Ecohealth Midterm Evaluation

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Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, known historically for its biodiversity, was devastated by years of war. To help restore the park to its former state, in 2008, the Gregory Carr Foundation entered into a 20-year agreement with the Mozambique government via the Gorongosa Restoration Project. Key objectives were: protection of the Park’s biodiversity and natural ecosystem processes, and poverty alleviation through ecotourism and other Park benefits. An underlying assumption was that a healthy ecosystem would provide the foundation for economic and social development. An Ecohealth program was incorporated to address health problems contributing to poverty. With support from USAID and Mt Sinai Hospital, an integrated (PHE) package of services was provided including family planning/reproductive health and maternal and child health interventions. In 2012, a midterm evaluation was commissioned by USAID to assess the extent to which Ecohealth was reaching its objectives and to identify “best practices” for replication and sharing with other integrated efforts worldwide.

Year: 2013

Source: Evaluation and Research Technologies for Health

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Family Planning

Integration

Maternal and Child Health

Monitoring & Evaluation

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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Desk Review of Programs Integrating Family Planning with Food Security and Nutrition

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The USAID Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy 2014­–2025 prioritizes family planning and reproductive health services (FP/RH) as nutrition-sensitive interventions that address the underlying and systemic causes of malnutrition. However, there is limited peer reviewed literature and a dearth of documentation on how to best integrate FP with food security and nutrition programming. To address this gap, FANTA conducted an extensive desk review to identify and synthesize programmatic experiences, including integration models, platforms, contact points, and providers used for integrated service delivery. This report synthesizes learnings from 102 health and multisectoral programs, including a rich set of program examples and three case studies, to illustrate the ways programs integrate family planning with nutrition and food security interventions. A third of the multisectoral programs included in the review and one cast study were PHE programs. The report and brief also include lessons learned, promising practices for programming, and recommendations for USAID.

Year: 2015

Source: FHI 360

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Family Planning

Food Security

Integration

Nutrition

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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Community Health, Family Planning, and Water Programs in Biodiversity Rich Areas of Madagascar

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From April 2011 to July 2012, Conservation International (CI) Madagascar implemented a Population, Health and Environment (PHE) project called Tokantrano Salama in the Ambositra-Vondrozo Forest Corridor (COFAV) in southeastern Madagascar. With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, CI Madagascar and partners Voahary Salama and Ny Tanintsika increased access to family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) services, improved access to clean water sources and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services, and promoted the benefits of integrated PHE approaches both within Madagascar and to the global PHE community. Using this integrated approach, CI and partners helped communities to improve their health at the same time they improved their water sources and the environment in this fragile and unique ecosystem.

Year: 2012

Source: Conservation International

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Conservation

Family Planning

Integration

Population

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Climate Change and Population: A Review of the Literature

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There is a sizeable body of literature that explores the connections between population and climate change and family planning as a link between the two. Overall, family planning has been proposed as both a means of preventing further climate change by slowing population growth, and thereby reducing consumption, and as a tool to equip vulnerable individuals, households, communities, and countries to better manage the challenges of a warming world. The following review summarizes the academic literature, conference papers, and UN reports from the last decade, exploring the background of these two perspectives, with an emphasis on family planning as a strategy of climate change adaptation, particularly for women.

Year: 2013

Source: PAI

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Climate Change

Family Planning

Population

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Climate Change and Family Planning: Least-Developed Countries Define the Agenda

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This paper analyzes the first 40 National Adaptation Programmes of Action reports submitted by governments of least-developed countries to the Global Environment Facility for funding. Of these documents, 93% identified at least one of three ways in which demographic trends interact with the effects of climate change: (i) faster degradation of the sources of natural resources; (ii) increased demand for scarce resources; and (iii) heightened human vulnerability to extreme weather events. These findings suggest that voluntary access to family planning services should be made more available to poor communities in least-developed countries. The article stresses the distinction between this approach, which prioritizes the welfare of poor communities affected by climate change, versus the argument that population growth should be slowed to limit increases in global carbon emissions. The paper concludes by calling for increased support for rights-based family planning services, including those integrated with HIV/AIDS services, as an important complementary measure to climate change adaptation programmes in developing countries.

Year: 2009

Source: Bulletin of the World Health Organization

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Climate Change

Family Planning

Population

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