Tag: family planning
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Dec 13, 2011
Political Support and Popular Opinion on the Largest-Ever Family Planning Conference: Part II
This is part II of a two-part blog. To read part I of this piece, click here . Changing opinions and behaviors around family planning in Senegal may happen slowly. Islam is the predominant religion in Senegal, practiced by approximately 94% of the population. Most Muslims in Senegal seek guidance on all social, religious, and cultural matters from their marabouts or spiritual leaders. The Senegalese government and the ISSU project are working closely with Muslim leaders to ensure that they are directly involved in discussions regarding family planning. According to the project’s baseline survey, more than three-fourths of urban men and women think that religious leaders should talk more openly about family planning. More than 90% of those surveyed also think that “God is the only one who should decide the number of children a couple has.” Imam Abdou Khadre Diallo and other religious leaders in the mosque in Djida Thiaroye Kao talked about a speech made by Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade. Wade had spoken during the conference about the acute need for family planning, not only to improve maternal and child health, but also to contribute... Read More » -
Dec 13, 2011
Political Support and Popular Opinion on the Largest-Ever Family Planning Conference: Part I
This is part I of a two-part blog. To read part II of this piece, click here . Wrapping up earlier this month, the International Conference on Family Planning brought together more than 2,000 participants for three days of science and advocacy on family planning. This largest-ever global family planning conference was held at Le Méridien in Senegal’s capital city, Dakar. The importance of holding this conference in West Africa cannot be overstated: it is what The Guardian columnist Sarah Boseley referred to in a column as the " the wild, wild west of family planning ," quoting a conference participant. Women in sub-Saharan Africa have the greatest unmet need for modern methods of family planning. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest fertility rates and the lowest use of modern methods of contraception in the world. Women in sub-Saharan Africa have more than twice as many children as women in other regions: 5.2 on average, compared with 2.2 in Latin America and 2.7 in South Central Asia. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 19% of women use modern contraception; in West Africa, only half that many, or 10%, use modern contraception. 1 Senegal, a country of 12... Read More » -
Nov 28, 2011
Family Planning and Access to Health Workers
Amid the worldwide health worker shortage, some low-income countries are managing to show impressive levels of modern contraceptive use. How does access to skilled health workers affect family planning use, and what are some countries doing differently? Fifty-seven countries have a critical shortage of health workers, and progress on the ground remains much slower than any of us would like to see—evidence from the Global Health Workforce Alliance suggests that only about half the national workforce plans are actually being implemented. Not one of these 57 health workforce “crisis” countries identified by the World Health Organization in 2006 has achieved the recommended minimum threshold of 2.3 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 people. We might think it would follow that countries with a low density of doctors, nurses, and midwives relative to population would have similarly low levels of contraceptive prevalence. But this is not the case. In fact, there’s a huge spread among the health workforce crisis countries in terms of the contraceptive prevalence rate. Doctors, nurses, and midwives are only part of the story. While all 57 crisis... Read More » -
Nov 28, 2011
Family Planning: Be an Example
This week, I am in Dakar for the 2011 International Conference on Family Planning. What I hope to see come out of this conference is a plan to make real change and an action plan for how we will measure and monitor that change. When it comes to reproductive health and family planning, there have been so many international and regional meetings—including Maputo (September 2006), Kampala (November 2009), Ouagadougou (February 2011), and Addis Ababa (June 2011)—but what has actually happened? The answer is not enough. From politicians to community and international leaders, we all need to be more engaged in supporting couples to make informed choices about family size. We need leaders who can talk about the benefits of family planning, educate communities, and set an example. Even if you are wealthy enough to support a large family, you are still using community resources. Communities build the schools and roads, but we all send our children to schools and use those roads. We all have to be responsible—for ourselves, for our kids, and for the future. To do this, we need more collaboration between the public and private sectors including civil society,... Read More » -
Nov 21, 2011
Talk Early and Talk Often
Many people consider “family planning” an adult topic. While it is a topic that affects adults, it should not be an adults-only topic. Adolescence is a period of major physical and psychological change, as well as great changes in social interactions and relationships. Young people need factual and age-appropriate information about reproductive health and their changing bodies and feelings, and there is international consensus that adolescents have the right to these services and information. 1 With the world crossing a new threshold—seven billion inhabitants—the bottom of the population pyramid is also getting bigger. Nearly 35% of people are under age 20. 2 Adolescents account for one in every five people globally. 1 When you couple this population trend with the dropping age of menarche in many countries, 3 there is clearly potential for even greater population growth. There is also a growing need for information and services to support people—particularly young people—to make informed choices about pregnancy and family size. As public health professionals, health care providers, parents, and teachers, we have an... Read More » -
Nov 18, 2011
Family Planning in West Africa: Courage and Conviction Can Make the Difference
As someone who has worked in this field for over 25 years, it is with mixed emotions that I prepare for the International Family Planning Conference in Dakar later this month. I can’t help but think about the progress that was made in the 1980s around family planning such as the vibrant work done by local affiliates of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, international nongovernmental organizations, and other champions. They were pioneers in so many ways and in many countries in introducing information and services in communities and in developing reproductive health policy guidelines. But then in the 1990s, we saw the rapid loss of so many of those gains and a plateau in funding from donor agencies and governments to support this work. HIV/AIDS soon became the priority focus and with it other infectious diseases as well, especially malaria and tuberculosis. Today, I look at the numbers, particularly in West Africa where we still see contraceptive prevalence in the single digits in several countries, and I see lost opportunities. At the forefront of my mind are the many countries in West Africa that lag behind other regions of the world—countries such... Read More » -
Nov 18, 2011
From Cairo to Dakar: Population Dynamics in Mali
Twenty years ago I arrived in Bamako, Mali, and discovered a capital city settling into relative calm following a military-led coup. My first images of Bamako were of cows, cars, and citizens grazing, grinding gears, and gridlocked on Bamako’s main artery through town—the Route de Koulikoro. One did not have to travel far on this road to experience the full spectrum of Malian culture and economy. Brand-new, shiny Land Rovers shared the road with bush taxis, mopeds, bikes, an occasional chicken, and many, many pairs of shuffling feet. It was possible to find just about any food somewhere along the Route. French and Malian restaurants, Lebanese cafés and shops, local cantines , street stalls, and markets offered fresh fish and fried plantains, baguettes and tô ( pounded millet ), mountains of mangoes, and the ubiquitous three cups of tea. The music of the Route de Koulikoro was a modern-day mash-up of the imams’ call to prayer, traditional instruments played by blind beggars hoping for spare change, the impotent whistles of traffic police, and the bleating of hungry sheep. Yet among all these sights and sounds and smells there... Read More » -
Nov 15, 2011
Honoring Fred Sai, A Relentless Champion
I recently attended the annual meeting of the Partners in Population and Development (PPD) and the International Conference on “Family Planning, Population Dynamics and Climate Change ,” which PPD organized jointly with the Ministry of Social Development of the Republic of South Africa. Both events took place in Pretoria from October 31-November 4, 2011. During the conference, PPD honored Professor Fred Sai with a lifetime achievement award for promoting South-to-South cooperation. The award followed many bestowed on Professor Sai, including the 1993 United Nations Population Award and the 1995 Prince Mahidol Award in recognition of his long-standing involvement in global leadership on international family planning and population issues. Professor Sai is a Ghanaian family health physician, who trained at the universities of London, Edinburgh, and Harvard, and has been a relentless champion of family planning and reproductive health. He has published extensively on a wide range of related social and ethical issues. In 2009, Family Health International honored Professor Sai for his global leadership in health, particularly for his immense contributions... Read More » -
Nov 9, 2011
The Seven-Billionth Person: A Global Health Workforce Perspective
On October 31 st the world welcomed Danica in the Philippines, Nargis in India, and numerous other babies who symbolize the seven-billionth person on our planet. It’s a timely moment to shine some light on the implications of population growth for the health and well-being of all our children and the generations to come. Here’s the crux: the global shortage of health workers translates to an estimated billion people with no access to essential health services, according to a 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) report . So exactly how many health workers do we need to address this problem? The WHO has determined that 2.3 doctors, nurses, and midwives per thousand people is the minimum threshold needed to cover the population with essential health services. This is commonly referred to as the health worker density ratio. Now here’s where the issue of population growth comes in. Planning and policy efforts to improve the health worker density ratio have focused on increasing the ratio’s numerator (health workers). Makes sense, right? But they’ve largely ignored the ratio’s denominator (population size). In other words,... Read More » -
Sep 26, 2011
A North Carolinian Honors World Contraception Day
As a North Carolinian and an American, I have always had access to the contraception I needed throughout my life. I have used condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, pills, and the intrauterine device (IUD). The appropriate method was always available when I needed it to protect myself from a pregnancy, which I was not ready for or wanted to avoid so I could adequately care for my two growing daughters. That is not true for most women around the world. Today, on the fifth World Contraception Day , I reflect on this inequality. I also reflect on the role that North Carolina and IntraHealth International has served as one of the early champions for the international family planning and the population movement and how that influenced my decision to dedicate my career to reproductive health and, ultimately, global health. On the year of my birth, University of North Carolina (UNC) established the Carolina Population Center (CPC) to address the “population crisis.” With initial funding from the Ford Foundation , The Rockefeller Foundation , and the United States Agency for International Development , UNC launched the CPC in 1965. It quickly became a preeminent,... Read More »
