World Population Awareness
Zero Population Growth
Georgia Population and Sustainability Group
The Green Umbrella Campaign
for Family Planning
Help promote international family planning.
Get your group
to carry green umbrellas in a U.S. parade.
The Green Umbrella represents a successful family planning
and reproductive health program in Bangladesh.
This page has moved to http://www.green-umbrella.net
Please set your bookmarks accordingly.
In last two hundred years, human living conditions have improved due to better sanitation and modern medical care, and so the death rate of infants, children, and adults has dropped. As long as birth rates continue as in former times, the result is a fast-growing population. Current trends see a net of 78 million people added to planet earth every year. In just four short years, the earth will have to sustain another 300 million people, more than the current population of the United States! While many wealthy countries have succeed in stabilizing their populations, or even reducing populations from former high levels reached in the 60s or 70s, many poor countries continue to have high birth rates due to inaccessibility of contraceptives or lack of knowledge about the benefits of birth spacing, marrying later, and having smaller families. Unfortunately, it is the poor countries that have the least resources to spare, and whose citizens cannot provide adequately for their children.
In an article from the October 1998 Scientific American, The Population Slide, the average birthrate for Bangladeshi women has dropped from 7 in 1975 to three. (However, large numbers of women have now entered the child-bearing age.) Bangladesh is still one of the 20 poorest countries in the world, it's sudden drop in birth rate usually occurs in countries in an advance stage of development. Reasons given are: the government's intensive family-planning
program; the drop in infant mortality which provides incentive to have fewer
children; micro-credit programs giving credit for start-up of small ventures
(with required resolutions to have smaller families); the war with Pakistan
which pushed many women into manual labor, thus giving them control over their
lives, and the big change in the status of women due to health care and
education; and lastly, Bangledeshi radio providing 6 hours of heath and
family-planning programming a day. Bangladesh is the most densely populated
countries in the world. USAID has helped considerably with the family planning
program here. There are still challenges, especially in rural areas, where the
feudal system still holds sway, encouraging large families to build up the clan.
According to the UNFPA, the potential for future growth is tremendous.
Bangladesh now has 126 million people. Remarkably, the country has brought
it's growth rate down from 3% in 1973 to 1.6% in 1999. Population stabilization
at 170 million, is expected in 40-45 years - if replacement level -2 children
per woman -is reached by 2005. More realistically, population will stabilize at
200-250 million in 2050. About 50% of Bangladeshi live in poverty and the same
number is illiterate.
According to a Xinhua news service article dated January 12, 2000, the
government wants to bring down the population growth rate to 1.2% from 1.6% by
raising the number of couples under the family planning program from 51% to 71%
in the current 1999-2000 fiscal year, seeing the need to set up condom, pill
and plastic coil factories to make contraceptives easily available . The
government also wants to reduce the infant and mother mortality rate from
4.3 to 2.6 per 1,000 during the period. 43% of the Bangladesh population is
below 15 years old.
The Green Umbrella Program
After nearly a year of planning, the Green Umbrella logo was launched by the
Honorable Minister of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), Mr. Salah Uddin Yusuf,
on September 24, 1996 to an ethusiastic audience of more than 3,000 people at
the Indoor Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka. The "Green Umbrella" is the logo which
marks the places where health and family planning services are provided.
The Green Umbrella logo, symbolizing hope and protection for families, could be
seen in every hospital, thana health complex, family planning center, satellite
clinic and the houses of the field workers.
The logo and its slogan were designed by the MOHFW with technical assistance
from
John Hopkins University/CCP in Bangladesh. The logo grew out of the need expressed in the National FP-MCH IEC Strategy for Bangladesh for a new logo to symbolize combined health and family planning services. It was launched with a major event in Dhaka in September 1996. Subsequently the logo was promoted through an extensive campaign using electronic and print media. Signs were placed on over 7,000 government and NGO clinics nationwide.
The Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP), John Hopkins CCP local
successor organization in Bangladesh, received a grant from the Japanese Embassy in Dhaka and produced 38,000 green umbrellas and distributed them among all the health and FP workers in the country. A very popular 13 part TV serial drama was produced and aired from October 1997 to promote the field workers and the Green Umbrella. Currently another 13 episode TV drama serial is being broadcast.
The color green was chosen as the most appropriate through focus group
discussions with villagers and field workers. The Bangla words around the border of the umbrella say "Take Services, Stay Well" the main slogan of the campaign.
The logo is still being promoted and popularized through various media channels
in Bangladesh and is well recognized as the place to go for services.
Funding for International Family Planning Programs,
USAID, and UNFPA
From the 1960s through the mid-1980s, U.S. funding, scientific expertise, and political leadership helped establish family-planning programs across the globe. Stabilizing population growth was deemed important to promote sustainable development, improve trade, mitigate illegal immigration, and ease potential conflicts. But after Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, a group of anti-abortion House members succeeded in slashing U.S. overseas family-planning funds by about one third to the current $385 million a year. U.N. Population Fund Executive Director Nafis Sadik believes the United States will resume its leadership role when congressional opponents come to realize that family planning will reduce the abortions they abhor. ... October 11, 1999 US News and World Report
As agreed upon in the ICPD (Cairo), in 1995 $7.5 billion came from developing
countries and $2 billion came from the industrialized world. Since then, the
contribution of the industrialized countries has declined.
Pat Waak, of the National Audubon Society Population and Habitat Program, said:
"As a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on
Population and Development, I was involved in the crafting of the program
of action. After thirty-five years in this field and work in 12 countries, I
don't believe the program of action was flawed." ... "Even before Cairo, we
had figured out that by the year 2000 the U.S. government should be
contributing 1.2 billion dollars per year to international population and
family planning. This budget coming up is about one-quarter of that amount. At
Cairo we agreed that developing countries would contribution 2/3 of the
money needed to address population growth in their countries. The donor
countries promised to contribute 1/3. Five years later the developing
countries met their commitment; we had not. It seems that the flaw is in our
unwillingness to take seriously the issues related to population. But our
biggest flaw is that we citizens have been unable to hold our
decision-makers accountable."
Programs showing successes towards family planning and slowing population growth
exist in Kenya, Thailand, Zimbewabe, Kerala (India), Mexico, Bangladesh, Iran,
Cuba, Tanzania, Columbia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Mongolia, Indonesia,
Uganda, Malawi, South Korea, Lebanon, and Oman.
Many believe that the U.S. budget currently contains ten times the amount
actually allocated to foreign aid. When polled, a majority believe that foreign
aid is more than 10 percent, and when asked what it should be, the consensus is
4-5 percent. In fact it is less than 1 percent! ... Mar 99 PCI
When Congress slashed funding for these programs in 1996, the 35 percent cut
resulted in 4 million unplanned pregnancies, 1.6 million abortions, 8,000
maternal deaths, and 134,000 infant deaths due to increased high-risk births,
according to leading U.S. research organizations.
In 1998 Congress eliminated all U.S. funding for the UNFPA. In 1999, in a compromise aimed at achieving the U.S. payment of back dues to the United Nations, President Clinton agreed to language in a spending bill that prohibits family planning aid to foreign non-government organizations (NGOs) for activities related to abortion. UNFPA funding was reinstated at $25 million, but with restrictions related to programs in China. ... The Washington Post
Family Planning Prevents Abortions
 |
Many women lose their lives to the
practice of abortion. Don't let it
happen it to you! ... Bolivia |
For 27 years, a U.S. law has forbidden the use of U.S. dollars for funding of abortions overseas, yet recently the promised amount of family planning funding from the U.S. has been held up because this law is not sufficient for some congressmen. In the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan, USAID has provided education to doctors and
nurses and increased contraceptive supplies to 28 clinics. In 1993, the number
of people receiving these contraceptives increase by 59 % while abortions fell 41 percent. Other examples where abortions dropped while contraceptive use rose are in Russia: abortions dropped from 3.6 million to 2.8 million in 4 years; in Hungary abortions fell from 80 per 1000 to 30 per 1000 in 26 years; in Chile abortions fell from 77 per 1000 to 45 per 1000 in 30 years; in Bogata Columbia a 1/3 increase in contraceptive use accompanied by a 45% decrease in abortions between 1976 and 1986; in Mexico City, contraceptive use went up 24% and the abortion rate went down 39%; in the industrialized nations including the US, Japan, and Western Europe, it was shown that the larger the proportion of women using 3 of the most effective contraceptive methods, the lower the national abortion rate. In Central Asia, the use of contraception has increased from 1/3 to 1/4 while abortions rates have decreased by as much as 1/2 from 1991-1996...ZPG
What You Can Do
Go talk to people about the need for family planning in third world countries. Tell them that there is a large unmet need for family planning education, basic health care, and contraceptives, and that 1% of the budget for foreign aid is much too small! And pass along this brochure.
For information on population and family planning, contact one or more of the following organizations:
ZPG ... www.zpg.org ... 1-800-767-1956 ... info@zpg.org
Population Coalition ... www.popco.org... ph/fax: 909-307-6597 ... PO Box 7918, Redlands, CA 92375
"The Population Coalition is a national grassroots organization dedicated to promoting a sustainable future through population stabilization, social justice and environmental
protection."
[your organization here]
For details on the Green Umbrellas,, or to purchase
Green Umbrellas for your group or organization, contact
Karen Gaia Pitts at gaia@calweb.com,
or write World Population Awareness at P.O. Box 1541, Rancho Cordova CA 95741.
www.population-awareness.net
Photos and the Green Umbrella logo were supplied by the JHU/CCP PHOTOSHARE
The eight panels of the U.S. version of the Green Umbrella will read:
Stay Well |
Take Health
Services |
Small
Families |
Healthy
Children |
Sustainable
Planet |
Women's
Self-Esteem |
Wildlife
Survival |
Clean Air,
Clean Water |
In the News
Japanese Envoy Signs 2 Grant Contracts.
