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It took the US 200 years to go from 7 babies per family to two. "Bangladesh has [nearly] done that in 20. Iran has more than halved its fertility rate in a decade."
Carl Haub - Population Reference Bureau

If we don't halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity - and will leave a ravaged world.
Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall

Before, we didn't know how to control pregnancy, we didn't have the education, and people in the area were having nine or ten children. We have 18 families and no one has more than three children. The health of the children and mothers has improved, and so has the spacing of babies. Everyone understands the importance of family planning now. Vincente Jarrin and Maria Juana Jarrin Malca, Husband and Wife Family Planning Promoters in Pasquazo Zambrano, Ecuador
2005  

The Two Parts of Sustainability Are Consumption and Population   The world could possibly reduce consumption down to a very basic level, but if population keeps growing, eventually that will not be enough. Even today many are living on a sub-sustainable level, due in part to an uneven distribution of resources, but also because, in many regions, population has outgrown essential resources for that region.

When people feel threatened by a hand-to-mouth existence, they are more likely to look towards less-than democratic ways to reduce population, especially if they have the foresight to realize that population growth is like a run-away train, very difficult to slow and stop.

However, more and more evidence is showing that the methods that work the best towards reducing population growth, are the methods established by the principles of the Cairo Conference in 1994 (United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) September 1994, Cairo, Egypt), which include: a. Empowering women and girls in the economic, political, and social arenas; b. Removing gender disparities in education; c. Integrating family planning with related efforts to improve maternal and child health; and d. Removal of 'target' family sizes.  

Population Progress.   A United Nations report says poverty perpetuates and is exacerbated by poor maternal health, gender discrimination, and lack of access to birth control. This holistic view has helped slow the increase in world population. The average family has declined from six children in 1960 to around three today. The world's population is expected to grow by 39% over the next 45 years and births in the 50 poorest nations are estimated to rise by 228%. Education and improved health for women and access to contraception are vital. Smaller families are healthier families and improve the prospects of each generation. 201 million couples do not have access to contraception and if they could practice family planning, 22 million abortions, 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths, and 1.4 million infant deaths each year could be prevented. Since 1994 more women have access to education and other rights, and more early-marriage traditions are being opposed. Most countries have laws prohibiting violence against women, female genital mutilation, and other violations of human rights.      October 06, 2004   Boston Globe

If we don't halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity - and will leave a ravaged world.
Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall

What could we, should we actually do about human population growth? Can population trends be altered? If so, can they be altered without violating core human values about the worth of all human beings and the freedom of all to make decisions about their own childbearing? Does the idea of altering population trends lead inevitably to "population control," to walls erected to keep out immigrants, and to coercive policies on childbearing that punish poor women for environment problems that may be the fault of wealthy people living far away? At the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, some 180 nations agreed with economist Amartya Sen that coercion has no place in any population program, whether it be a one-child policy, sterilization, forced marriage, forced childbearing, or forced sex. The Chinese, to their credit, are turning away from coercion and toward the approach that the United Nations Population Fund is the United Nations Population Fund is demonstrating, and groups such as Population Action International are advocating worldwide. This more democratic and comprehensive approach champions women's education and access to information and to reproductive-health to reproductive-health care. That care ideally includes not only contraceptives but also pre-natal and post-natal care, professional birth attendants, nutritional and child-care counseling, as well as H.I.V./AIDS prevention.   Amy Coen, PAI, Vanity Fair LTE

Meeting the Cairo Challenge.   Policies based on population control are moving towards more people- oriented, reproductive health approaches. Although it takes time for policy and legal changes to benefit women and men at the community and household levels, such changes are a critical first step. Policies and laws are needed to hold health services courts, schools, and other institutions, as well as communities and families, accountable. As such, the policy and legal changes made since 1994 based on human rights, equity, and meeting people's needs--are central to fullfiling the Cairo Mandate.   Family Care International

Voluntary Family Planning Key to Past Human Survival, Author Says.   According to Robert Engelman in his book More: Population Nature, and What Women Want, the decisions women make on bearing children, when made freely, have kept the human race over the centuries from either dying out or becoming too numerous. Women making personal decisions tend over time, if those decisions can be made freely, to make population overall more sustainable. The success of the modern human species in expanding throughout the world is due largely to the cooperative skills of women in raising more than two children each to adulthood. When times were hard or resources scarce, women tended to have smaller families than otherwise. Contraception is mentioned in history as early as there is writing.   June 22, 2008   Communications Consortium Media Center

More Choice for Women Means More Sustainability.   Unwanted childbearing is a greater demographic force than the desire for large families. Expanding the capacity of all women to choose when to bear children is the surest route to achieving an environmentally sustainable population. In countries that make effective personal control of reproduction possible for all, women invariably have two children or fewer on average. By making their own decisions based on what's best for themselves and their children, women ultimately bring about a global good that governments could never deliver through regulation or control. The writer interviewed women from many countries over a period of 25 years. Interspersing stories from these conversations with research across history and the social sciences, he delves into the roots of sexuality and procreation to discover how women's lives and status have influenced cultural evolution, history, and modern society. Women have been so intent on reproducing at a time that is best for their child's survival that they have hidden their contraceptive use from their husbands and religious leaders. Societies that make it easy for women and their partners to safely plan the timing of births will experience stable or gradually declining populations. The Worldwatch Institute has demonstrated how important the stabilization in population is for long-term environmental sustainability. Population growth is a driving force behind some of today's most serious problems, including climate change and rising food prices. Meeting the need for safe and effective contraception can speed the transition to sustainable societies.   May 08, 2008   WorldChanging

Call for Europe to Take the Lead in Revitalising Family Planning Agenda in World's Poorest Countries.   A plea is made for a revitalisation of family planning in the poorest countries, as soaring population rates are a bigger threat to achieving the MDGs than HIV. A paper asserts that family planning should have a higher priority than HIV in most poor countries, because it poses a greater threat to international development. Leadership may need to come from European governments and agencies, rather than the US. Family planning promotion is unique in its potential benefits. It reduces poverty, maternal, and child mortality. It contributes to universal primary schooling, empowers women and enhances environmental sustainability. Family planning programmes have raised the use of contraceptives from less than 10% to 60% and reducing fertility in developing countries from six to about three births per woman. But in half the countries contraceptive practice population growth and unmet need for family planning remain high. Investment in family planning should have a higher priority than in HIV prevention and treatment. In Uganda, with a longstanding HIV epidemic, population size is projected to grow from 30 million today to 61 million by 2025, and further to 127 million by the middle of this century. Hopefully, perhaps European countries, the World Bank, or even the Gates Foundation will give leadership. Most poor countries need encouragement to implement population control with conviction and commitment. The keys are high-level political commitment, a broad coalition of support from elite groups, adequate funding, the legitimisation of the idea of smaller families and modern contraceptives.   November 06, 2006   Innovations Report

Women Education and Family Planning.   In almost every country, educated women have fewer children than their uneducated sisters. Since more girls are receiving education in the developing world, the education factor becomes extremely significant. There are 29% more girls and 16% more boys in secondary school than a decade ago. Fertility has gone down in some American countries and experts say, education was responsible. An educated literate woman is far more likely to make use of clinics, post offices or transport systems, because education makes her more confident and less dependent on men. She is more likely to feel that she has control over her life and fertility. Educated women are better able to keep their children alive and healthy. A 1% rise in women's literacy rate is three times more effective in reducing infant mortality than a 1% rise in number of doctors. Four to six years of a education led to a 20% drop in infant deaths. In families where a child had died, parents will tend to produce more children than they wanted. Having children becomes a form of insurance against the risk of no offspring to support you in your old age. If a mother knows that there are certain things she can do to help keep her children alive she will be far more open to controlling the size of her family. Women who are educated get better healthcare. In an ideal world all women would have several years education before they decide to start a family. But in every country in the world one school girl or another is discovering that she is pregnant. In patriarchal societies education may serve to further entrench inequalities. In India for example, educated women improved only the health of their sons.   November 06, 2006   The Tide Online

Reproductive Health of Young Adults in India: the Road to Public Health.   In 1999, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and unrestricted seed money by the Pathfinder Board of Directors, Pathfinder International launched the first phase of the Reproductive Health of Young Adults in India (RHEYA) Project, a seven-year pilot project to change the attitudes of adolescents and young adults related to reproduction, overcoming the idea that ill health is an act of God or a result of one's fate. RHEYA Project has improved the overall utilization of reproductive health and family planning services primarily by changing popular beliefs and knowledge about early marriage and childbearing and the importance of spacing children to improve their chances of surviving and thriving. In selected areas of the states of Tamil Nadu, New Delhi, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, Pathfinder partnered with four local nongovernmental organizations to develop effective interventions that reached nearly 22,000 young people from underprivileged communities with adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) information. The project's goal was to reaching parents, in-laws, and community and religious leaders, as well as the young people themselves - all at he same time. More than 81% of the people of India live on less than $2 per day; despite amazing economic progress, much of the country remains crushingly poor. India is home to 30% of the world's young people - between the ages of 10 and 24.3 - those reaching their reproductive years. Indian women bear an average of 3.0 children, which means the country's population will double in 41 years. Indian women - "like those in many developing countries" bear their children very young. The median age of marriage for girls is 16.75, well below the legal age of 18. Given little knowledge of or access to contraception, their childbearing is telescoped into adolescence and early adulthood. Twenty-eight percent of women give birth before the age of 18, and the median age of sterilization is 25.77. Only 5% of married women between the ages of 15-19, and 21% between 20-24, use modern methods of contraception. In fact, according to a study from NFHS 2, 1998-1999, at least 25.6% of women between the ages of 15-19, and 18.4% between 20-24 would like to space their children further apart but do not have the ability to do so. Access to reproductive health and family planning for these young people could lower birth rates to dramatically slow the population doubling rate. For over 30 years, the government of India aggressively addressed the problem of population, with a dominant focus on promoting small families and the use of sterilization after two or three children. "A small family is a happy family," was the slogan, which led people to believe that the government's goal was to limit the population. They saw contraception as a government need, rather than as something that is to their personal advantage. Pathfinder directly addresses that perception, persuading women and men to understand contraception and the timing of pregnancies as an important means of personal autonomy and improvement in their personal lives. India has a tragically high maternal mortality rate and adolescent girls are twice as likely to die in childbirth as women in their twenties. For those between the ages of 10-14, this risk is five times higher, due to their emotional and physical immaturity and their inability to seek and use adequate health care during pregnancy and childbirth. The children of young mothers are 50% more likely to die than those born to mothers aged 20-29. Child spacing is more important for an adolescent because an adolescent is not fully developed and pregnancy retards her own growth. A child born less than 24 months after a previous birth is nearly three times as likely to die as a child born after a gap of 48 months or more. Unwanted teenage pregnancies often lead to abortions - 16% of maternal mortality in India is due to unsafe abortions. Adolescents are also the age group most vulnerable to Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS. In 2005, 32.42% of people living with HIV/AIDS in India were between the ages of 15 and 29. Knowledge about sexuality, reproduction, personal hygiene, and STIs is extremely low, since these are culturally embarrassing topics between mother and daughter, father and son, teacher and pupil, or even between friends. A young girl in a poor village who learns how to control and take responsibility for her reproductive life, will be able to change the course of her life, from delaying marriage and children to acquire education, to making healthy decisions about sexual activity and preventing sexally transmitted diseases. She will be more able to take steps to ensure healthy pregnancies and care of newborn children. In India, and in much of the developing world, the key to reducing maternal and child mortality, the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, empowering women, improving their health, ensuring family well-being, and reducing population growth rates, is an urgent focus on adolescents.   November 06, 2006   Pathfinder

Far Too Many Women Risking Death to Give Life, UNFPA Leader Says, As UN Unveils Progress Report on Development Goals.   UNFPA said we must create a more caring world by doing all we can to prevent millions from losing their lives to pregnancy and childbirth. Today’s report reaffirms that universal access to reproductive health care is the starting point for maternal health and saving women's lives. Maternal health also frees women to pursue opportunities in work and education, giving them power to make decisions to improve lives in their families and communities. Promoting the rights of girls and women, securing their reproductive health and the means to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections, particularly HIV/AIDS, are the surest ways to realize the development goals of all countries. The risk of death from pregnancy in the developing world would be reduced substantially if all of its women had access to the family planning services they desired. Currently, 200 million women have an unmet need for safe and effective contraceptive services. It is essential for pregnant women to get access to emergency obstetric care centres that must be stocked with drugs, equipment and supplies. Because there is no cure for AIDS, prevention is essential, treatment and care need to be expanded to reach millions who are HIV-positive.      June 17, 2005   UNFPA

World Population Likely to Stabilize in 40 Years.   World fertility is expected to decline and the world population will stabilise in 40 years. Over the last 50 years, the world has slowed population growth, raised life expectancy, lowered mortality and improved quality of life. The last century, had seen the total population more than triple, to 6.1 billion in 2000, growing annually at 1.2%, lower than the 2% in the late 1960s. The number of children per woman came down from 5 in the 1950s to less than 3 currently, and the annual increase of the population fell to 77 million in 2004 from 87 million in 1987. The increase has been falling since the 1980s and is expected to fall to 29 million by 2050, when there wil be stabilization, attributed to lower fertility. When fertility decreases to the replacement level of 2, the birth rate and the death rate will be in harmony. There are 60 countries below that level, but population growth is not yet over and is expected to last 25 to 40 years. Six developing countries, India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia and Bangladesh account for half of the annual increments of the world population, with India making up 21%. South Asia and Africa are the two fastest- growing areas, and there we have to continue family planning services. The challenge of population ageing could be met by extending working age, adjusting social policies and bringing in more migrants, among other policy adjustments.      July 10, 2004   Xinhua General News Service

Poverty and Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence from 25 Countries.   The incidence of poverty in Africa has been stagnating over the last two decades and is unlikely to improve in the near future. Widespread fertility control seems to be the only route to a fertility decline. The hypothesis of fertility decline under poverty runs counter to the classical demographic theory and to the common idea that poverty is a key factor of high fertility. Economic approaches consider high fertility a rational response to poverty and fertility will not decline unless conditions improve. On the other hand, the decline of fertility among the poor is consistent with the innovation diffusion approach which says that fertility decline results from the spread of ideas, values and technology, regardless of their economic status. Evidence of fertility changes in Bangladesh and Nepal are consistent with innovation diffusion, and studies in Latin America support this view. Yet, few studies have documented the relationships between economic status and fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is well-known that female education and place of residence are related to fertility, but few studies have described the relationship between economic status and fertility behaviour. The objective of this paper is to document the relationship between economic status and fertility behaviour in Sub-Saharan Africa. Three questions are addressed. (1) What are the differentials in fertility by economic status? (2)What account for these differentials? (3) Are they explained by women’s educational level and place of residence? We briefly address four questions. (1) In each country, what proportion of fertility change can be accounted for by a shift in economic status? (2) To what extent has fertility changed within economic groups? (3) What accounts for these changes? (4) Can they be related to changes in other the economy? Women from poor households have larger families, almost always in the course of fertility transition. Relationships are less clear-cut in high fertility settings. In a previous literature review on the relationships between economic status and fertility, about 50 such relationships reported in 32 studies but only six of them were on Sub-Saharan Africa. We found a diversity of relationships between economic status and fertility. There was no relationship in Botswana in the 1970s, a slightly positive relationship in Sierra Leone, a slightly negative relationship in Burkina Faso and in a small town in Southern Sudan. Using data from surveys conducted in the 1990s, indicate that, in most countries, fertility decreases with increasing economic status. Fertility by economic status are in all the 25 countries studied, and the poorest women have a larger number of children. These fertility differences are from contraceptive use and age at marriage. The differences by economic status persist after education and place of residence that suggests economic status has the major effect on fertility. Analyses of changes show that fertility has decreased in all the economic groups in these countries that indicates though fertility has declined, poverty does not represent an obstacle to fertility changes, in these countries. Fertility changes are independent from changes in the distribution of the population by economic status. They are little related to educational levels and changes in place of residence. The largest changes, which concern the poorest women, have occurred in Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa where family planning programmes are more developed. This suggests that better family planning services contribute to reducing fertility among the poorest women. Our results suggest that better-off women are the first to control their fertility and that control spreads to the rest of the population, including the poorest women. The level of child mortality in the countries where fertility has changed most among the poorest women (Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe) is lower than in other countries. Child mortality is most strongly related to fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa and should be taken into account. The changes in the demand for children by economic status could provide further insight into the mechanisms underlying the relationships between economic status and fertility behaviour.      April 2004   Population Association of America

The Interaction Between Health & Fertility: Evidence from the Ivory Coast.   The UN calculates that developing countries can increase their economic growth by reducing population through lower fertility. In many East-Asian countries, lower fertility led to a lower dependency, that fostered savings and investments for economic growth. The key factors are investments in health, education and gender equality. As fertility declines, the working-age adult population increases and with a lower dependency and investments in health and education, families were able to move out of poverty, that led to economic growth. Though countries have only one chance to take advantage of this effect, many developing countries have yet to reach that stage. Investments in health and education in developing countries take on more importance since their effect on economic growth may be larger than previously thought. For countries to take advantage of this, a better understanding of the effects of investments on economic growth is needed. Studies have established that higher education, awareness of reproductive health services and opening labor market opportunities, lead to lower fertility. Increased education for women does not always leads to greater participation in the labor market, thereby reducing fertility, but allows for more investment in their children in the form of more schooling and better health. This higher investment increases the cost of having an additional child and may lead to a fall in the demand for children. If you are interested in this subject, please follow the link to the entire article as it is not all covered here.      December 05, 2003   Journal of Health and Population in Developing Countries

Forks in the Demographic Road.   What causes birth rates to drop? The short answer is that while there are racks of data that show strong correlations with fertility decline, all of the models fail to establish predictive causality. In short, while there are "theories" about the "demographic transition," there are no hard-and-fast rules, and quite a few important exceptions. John Cleland of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has looked at countries with similar socio-economic profiles, for example, and found that many of them have very different track records. Algeria and Tunisia, for example, had comparable proportions of literate people, city dwellers, and the exact same life expectancy in the mid-1980s. Algeria's GNP of $2,360 per head, however, was almost double that of Tunisia. So did Algeria's fertility decline faster than Tunisia's? No. In fact, Algeria's fertility decline started about 15 years later than Tunisia's. Why? The short answer, according to Cleland, is that the Algerian government regarded family planning as a tool of Western oppression, while Tunisia had a more positive attitude towards contraception. While the government of Algeria has since embraced a very successful family planning program, their 15-year delay will have a real cost -- a 2050 population that will be 20 million people higher due to governmental delay. A similar story is told in Bangladesh and Pakistan, two nations that used to be one country. At the time of their 1971 split, Bangladesh was far poorer than its neighbor. So did Pakistan's fertility rate fall faster than that of Bangladesh? No. In fact, Bangladesh's fertility rate fell soon as a direct result of government resources put into meeting the unmet need for contraception in that country. In Pakistan, instead of focusing on family planning and health care, that government focused on saber-rattling and weapons procurement. As a result, Pakistan will have about 150 million more poor people in 2050 than it might have had if it had followed the Bangladesh model. Cleland argues such comparisons show that the link between economic development and smaller families is "much weaker and more variable" than previously believed, and that "the empowerment of women ... will facilitate fertility decline but is not a precondition for it." Ironically, Cleland's theory is challenged by the case of West Bengal, right next door to Bangladesh. The Muslims of West Bengal (which includes the city of Calcutta) have the highest levels of contraceptive use in India -- higher even than that of the Muslims of Kerala. The total fertility rate of West Bengal is expected to hit the replacement rate within the next two years. What's odd here is that the state government of West Bengal "has been quite indifferent to population policy" according to Alaka Basu and Sajeda Amin, writing in the December 2000 issue of Population and Development Review. "West Bengal has never had the kind of aggressive or even efficient family planning campaign or program that many other parts of India have embraced at various times." According to Basu and Amin, both Bangladesh and West Bengal share a common language and a common culture that embraces change -- another element in the matrix of factors that influence the speed of fertility decline. The bottom line seems to be that every country, every culture, and every couple need to be treated as individuals if we are to get to replacement level fertility rates as quickly as possible. While education, economic development, and government support for family planning programs are all important, there is not a single "silver bullet solution" that triggers rapid and sustained fertility decline in every country every time. Instead, the decision to have smaller families appears to be a complex decision that can be encouraged and facilitated by a wide variety of programs, developments and outside forces. The good news is that countries that have been slow to embrace family planning often find that modern contraceptive methods can help to reduce fertility quickly. The bad news is that time lost cannot be regained. Though fertility may fall, the base population will be higher and so too will be the population when it reaches stabilization. For more information, see "The Determinants of Reproductive Change in Bangladesh: Success in a Challenging Environment" published by the World Bank and authored by John Cleland and Sajeda Amin, and; "Conditioning Factors for Fertility Decline in Bengal: History, Language Identity, and Openness to Innovations," Population and Development Review, December 1, 2000 by Alaka Basu and Sajeda Amin. I have appended below the historical and projected (UN Median variant) total fertility rates of the countries discussed:

�	ALG.	TUN.	PAK.	BANG.	INDIA
1950-1955	7.28	6.93	6.28	6.7	5.97
1955-1960	7.28	7.04	6.28	6.76	5.92
1960-1965	7.38	7.25	6.28	6.85	5.81
1965-1970	7.38	6.89	6.28	6.6	5.69
1970-1975	7.38	6.21	6.28	6.15	5.43
1975-1980	7.18	5.69	6.28	5.6	4.83
1980-1985	6.36	4.9	6.23	5.25	4.48
1985-1990	5.23	4.12	6.08	4.75	4.15
1990-1995	4.12	3.13	5.83	4.4	3.8
1995-2000	3.15	2.32	5.48	3.95	3.45
2000-2005	2.8	2.01	5.08	3.46	3.01
2005-2010	2.51	1.91	4.62	3.08	2.7
2010-2015	2.28	1.85	4.11	2.75	2.46
2015-2020	2.08	1.85	3.6	2.5	2.28
2020-2025	1.91	1.85	3.14	2.31	2.14
2025-2030	1.85	1.85	2.79	2.16	2.02
2030-2035	1.85	1.85	2.53	2.04	1.92
2035-2040	1.85	1.85	2.34	1.94	1.85
2040-2045	1.85	1.85	2.18	1.85	1.85
2045-2050	1.85	1.85	2.06	1.85	1.85

  August 2003   Patrick Burns

Women's Reproductive Health in the Middle East and North Africa.   Half of the 10 million women who give birth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) endure complications and one million suffer from serious injuries due to birth. Women in MENA continue to face complications due to sexual inequality, quality of healthcare and the lack of reproductive healthcare and education. In 1994 the UN International Conference on Population and Development stated a definition for reproductive health that would advance women and go beyond family planning. Currently the majority of maternal deaths occur in four countries: Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, and Yemen. Iraq�s is one of the highest in the world, 300 deaths per 100,000 live births. Morocco is 200 deaths per 100,000 live births. "Maternal deaths are strongly associated with the absence of good medical care before, during, and after delivery." Most maternal deaths occur due to postpartum hemorrhage. Most of the women who do seek healthcare while pregnant prefer to see women physicians, however there are few available. Overall, "reducing cultural, financial, and physical obstacles to reproductive health care service is necessary for improving maternal health." The other cause for maternal death is self-induced abortions of abortions carried out my unskilled practitioners. Over one million unsafe abortions occur in MENA countries every year and 16 percent of all maternal deaths are attributed to this. An otherwise safe procedure can mean death for many where abortion is illegal, unsanitary and unsafe. "MENA�s total fertility rate has declined from an average of 7.0 children per woman in 1960 to 3.3 children in 2002 � still well above the world average of 2.8 children per woman." Sixty percent of married women are using a form of family planning, but many are still not using contraceptives. Some women choose not to use contraceptives because of feared side effects, opposition from husbands and relatives or even trying contraceptives and being unsatisfied with the use. "One study has shown that if no women experienced contraceptive failure or stopped using a method, Egypt and Jordan�s total fertility rates would drop to 2.0 births per woman, Morocco�s to 2.4, and Turkey�s to 1.5." Thus, finding a contraceptive that works well with each individual woman is important for the reproductive health of all families.      February 17, 2003   Population Reference Bureau

Fertility Rates Drop.   by Amartya Sen, author of Development as Freedom, and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1998.
Perhaps the most immediate adversity caused by a high rate of population growth lies in the loss of freedom that women suffer when they are shackled by persistent bearing and rearing of children. Global warming is a distant effect compared with what population explosion does to the lives and well-being of mothers. Female illiteracy, lack of female employment opportunity and economic independence contribute substantially to the muffling women's voices in society and within the family. Not knowing about family planning or available family planning facilities is also an important source of helplessness. Cultural and religious factors often force young women toi accept a subservient position and the burden of constantly bearing and rearing children which husband or parents-in-law have placed on them. A long history sanctifies such practices and generates uncritical acceptance. On the other hand, women's empowerment, through employment, education, property rights, etc., can lead to the reduction of the fertility rate. The Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu or Himachal Pradesh have experienced speedy fertility declines which can be linked to the rapid enhancement of female education, employment opportunity, and and other empowerment of young women. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan, on the other hand, give few economic and educational opportunities to young women and experience high fertility rates. It is notable that China, where coercive one-child policies were employed, fertility rates fell from 2.8 to 2.0 from 1979 to 1991, while in Kerala, where fertility decline was freely chosen, fertility rates fell much faster, from 3 to 1.8 in the same period. In Kerala, the rate of expansion of female literacy has also been faster than China's, and consequently, Kerala's infant mortality rate has continued to fall fast while it has not in China, where it is now double Kerala's, even though they were roughly even in this respect in 1979. [This is an excellent article and deserves a full read. Unfortunately, it is not on-line. Look for The Nation, No. 4, Vol. 271; Pg. 16 ; ISSN: 0027-8378 at your library.]   July 24, 2000   Nation, The (Thailand)

Tesitmonial.   "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."   1999   Pat Waak, National Audubon Society Population and Habitat Program

Large Acceptance for Family Planning.   Over 95% of the developing world's population lives in countries with policies supporting family planning. In fact, almost three-quarters of funding for family planning services comes from developing country governments and consumers. Nearly 60% of couples or over 380 million women in the developing world (excluding China) want to limit or space their births. Yet over 100 million of these women do not use family planning services mainly because of lack of accurate information and poor access to a variety of good-quality services.   1999   USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)

Causes of population growth:	Solutions:
Unwanted pregnancies and the unmet need for contraception. About one out of four women wants to prevent or postpone her next pregnancy, but is not using contraception. In sub-Saharan Africa, unmet need is between 30-42%.	Family planning education and availability of contraception and sterilization
Population momentum, which occurs when large numbers of young people enter their childbearing years at once. Population growth peaked in the 1960s, and the children of those people are now having children. Between the ages of 15 and 24, most young women become sexually active, marry and have their first children. Many times, these activities are not the choice of the young lady involved.	Studies estimate that delaying the onset of childbearing by two to five years would ease "population momentum" and reduce the eventual global total. Spacing children will also ease the burden of population momentum. "Raising mothers� age at first birth from 18 to 23 would reduce population momentum by over 40%." "If they decide to delay their first pregnancy and to have proper spacing between pregnancies, the difference could be something like half a billion to 1 billion people by the year 2015," UN Population Fund Executive Director Nafis Sadik says. Christian Science Monitor, 20 Oct
The desire for large families. In areas where child mortality rates are high, parents choose to have many children so that some will survive.	Reduce the infant mortality rate
Where women lack self-esteem, employment, schooling, and/or the full legal and social rights of citizenship, they depend on children for status and security.	Provide jobs or small business opportunities for women. Education of females. Give women a voice in government. Reproductive health clinics help promote self-esteem by demonstrating that a woman's life is worth preserving.

- provided in part by the National Resource Defense Council
National Resource Defense Council

9 out of 10 American voters believe family planning services are important.
• 74% of American voters favor public sector funding for family planning services.
• 66% of American voters believe it is important to ensure that abortion remains accessible.

There are a Wide Range of Suggestions for Attaining Population Sustainability.   Those that believe that there aren't enough people in the world will tell you that everyone should have all the children that they can. They will say that there is a 'birth dearth', overlooking the fact that there are more people on the earth than ever before, and overlooking that in the Bible (Genesis) God told not just humans, but the animals to 'Be fruitful and multiply. (we seem to be wiping out plant and animal species by our overabundance) Those that believe that the environment is being degraded, and see the connection between bad human habits (i.e. sprawl and overconsumption) and the degraded environment, but do not see the connection between increasing numbers of people and the loss and degradation of plant and animal habitat - these people will tell you that any effort to reduce population is an attempt to 'control people', or an attempt to 'target' certain groups of people. Why Population Matters Some, not really seeing the magnitude of population impact, will say that the U.S. has no business in the reproduction policies of other countries and neither should we be making any reproduction policies in this country, either, so let every family (or church) make it's own reproduction decisions. WOA!! believes, along with about 170 countries, the United Nations, and a large number of people in the U.S., - that human sustainability and the environment are being severely impacted by overpopulation, and that 'population control' is NOT the answer. The answer lies in the principles of the Cairo Conference in 1994 (United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) September 1994, Cairo, Egypt), which include: a. Empowering women and girls in the economic, political, and social arenas, b.Removing gender disparities in education c.Integrating family planning with related efforts to improve maternal and child health, and d. removal of 'target' family sizes. More on this below. Many believe that the earth is fast reaching it's 'carrying capacity'. They don't think that reduction in population growth is happening fast enough. The less severe methods recommended are incentives and disincentives, which include: eliminating tax breaks or welfare caps for more than two children, and trying to socially ostracize people for having more than two children. Others want more severe methods because of the severity of the impacts caused by foreseen human overpopulation. The Chinese, in their one-Child policy, used large disincentives, ostracizing, and even imprisonment to enforce their policies. Of course there will always be the few radical elements that will suggest more severe methods, some as bad as the methods Hitler used in Germany. WOA!! asks that you do not let these bad examples deter you from wanting to do something worthwhile about human overpopulation. We cannot afford to let more and more of the world, humans and animals, suffer a degraded existence or early loss of life altogether due to too many people.   WOA!! website

Moving to a Stable World Population.   Some 43 countries have populations that are stable or declining slowly. A large group of countries has reduced fertility to the replacement level or just below. They are headed for population stability after young people move through their reproductive years. Included in this group are China and the United States. A third group is projected to more than double their populations by 2050. UN projections show growth under three assumptions about fertility levels. The medium projection has world population reaching 9.2 billion by 2050. The high one 10.8 billion. The low projection, which assumes fertility to 1.6 children has population peaking at just under 8 billion in 2041 and then declining. If the goal is to eradicate poverty, hunger, and illiteracy, we have little choice but to strive for the lower projection. This means that all women should have access to family planning services. At present 201 million couples cannot obtain the services they need. Filling the family planning gap may be the most urgent item on the global agenda. The good news is that countries that want to reduce family size can do so quickly. In one decade Iran dropped its population growth to one of the lowest in the developing world. It's annual population growth peaked at 4.2% in the early 1980s. As this growth began to burden the economy and the environment, the country's leaders realized that overcrowding, environmental degradation, and unemployment were undermining Iran's future. In 1989 the government restored its family planning program. The resources of education, culture, and health were mobilized to encourage smaller families. Some 15,000 clinics were established to provide rural populations with health and family planning services. Religious leaders were directly involved in appealing for smaller families. Iran introduced male sterilization, contraceptives such as the pill and sterilization, were free of charge. Iran became the only country to require couples to take a class on modern contraception before receiving a marriage license. In addition a broad-based effort was launched to raise female literacy, from 25% in 1970 to more than 70% in 2000. Female school enrollment increased from 60 to 90%. Television was used to disseminate information on family planning. As a result of this initiative, family size in Iran dropped from seven children to fewer than three. From 1987 to 1994, Iran cut its population growth rate to 1.3% in 2006, slightly higher than in the US. Soap operas on radio and television can quickly change attitudes about reproductive health, gender equity, family size, and environmental protection. It costs relatively little and can proceed while formal educational systems are being expanded. The U.S.-based Population Media Center has initiated projects in some 15 countries. Their radio dramas in Ethiopia, address issues such as HIV/AIDS, family planning, and the education of girls. A survey in 2004 found that 63% of clients seeking reproductive health care at 48 service centers reported listening to one of the dramas. Demand for contraceptives increased 157%. For Bangladesh, $62 spent by the government to prevent an unwanted birth saved $615 on other social services. When countries move quickly to smaller families, productivity surges, savings and investment climb, and economic growth accelerates. This lasts for only a few decades, but it is usually enough to launch a country into the modern era. Meeting the needs of the 201 million women who do not have access to effective contraception could each year prevent 52 million unwanted pregnancies, 22 million induced abortions, and 1.4 million infant deaths.   January 21, 2008   Earth Policy Institute

How Many Chinese Are Enough?.   Because China has worked hard over the last 30 years, we have 400 million fewer people. In the eyes of supporters, that justifies the infringements on people's freedoms. The end justifies the means, doesn't it? Not having more than two billion people in 20 years time is a desirable outcome for China. There is a limit to how many people China can support. But did the regime have to impose such a draconian birth-control policy? The Chinese government's "soft" birth-control policy, encouraging later marriage, fewer births and longer birth intervals - brought the fertility rate down from 5.7 in 1970 to 2.9 by 1979. And it happened before the one-child policy was introduced. Critics point to the Indian experience, where an early experiment with enforced birth-control measures created a backlash and yet, India's birth rate has also fallen to only 2.8 this year. The transition from high birth rate, high death rate societies to longer-lived communities works its magic eventually. But it does take its time. Compulsion does make a difference. By 1980 China's fertility rate was already down without compulsion to the rate that prevails in India today. With compulsion, it has fallen to little more than half the current Indian fertility rate. So China's population will level off at about 1.4 billion by 2020, while India's will go on growing to at least 1.7 billion. If China had taken India's approach, its population would probably reach two billion before it stopped growing. That could easily be the margin between success and disaster. China's economic miracle skates along the edge of environmental calamity. Breathing the air in Beijing is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes every day. Dozens of cities are experiencing severe water shortages. It's bad enough but what would it have been like without the one-child policy? In large parts of the world, it is not acceptable to suggest that the number of people can be a problem. Population control is absent, for example, from discussions about how to minimise climate change. It's partly out of concern for the religious sensibilities, and partly because of the human rights issues. In addition there are demographic implications. The shrinking number of people in the working-age population who have to provide for an aged population. Another is a wave of selective abortions and female infanticide. In China girls are in such short supply that by 2010 there will be 37 million young Chinese men with no prospect of a wife. Almost two-thirds of Chinese families have only one child. And the Government is determined to retain the policy and intends to bring the population down whatever the collateral social damage. China is well beyond its long-term "carrying capacity" even with its present population. There are things worse than a one-child policy such as social disintegration and civil war.   October 25, 2007   New Zealand Herald

India;: Let Men Do Their Bit.   For 30 years, vasectomy has been taboo, and the burden of family planning has been on women. But modern vasectomy techniques are a success in the West. India needs to try them. India's most populous State, Uttar Pradesh, will account for 22% of India's population by 2026. Fertility rates here destined to take decades to reach replacement levels. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are forecast to jointly account for only 13% of the population increase during the same period. Currently, 42% of India's population produces three or more children. Of 188 million couples requiring contraceptive coverage, only 53% cent are using contraceptives. The percentage of women having more than three children is 57% in Uttar Pradesh, 54% in Bihar and 49% in Madhya Pradesh. Almost half the girls there are under 18 at marriage. There is urgent need to push up the age of marriage, delay the birth of the first child and widen the scope for spacing and limiting families. Vasectomy is a feasible way. Unfortunately, any efforts to limit population are attacked by critics as an invasion of "human rights". Given the culture of the northern States, such goals are dumped as "unacceptable" and "impossible" and invariably shunned by many politicians. The Millennium Development Goals do not envision family planning as the route to improving maternal and child health. This acts as a deterrent to organisations getting involved overtly. Concentration on maternal and child health services has excluded men. Counselling on vasectomy is just not their business. In India, men have ceased to be the object of family planning ever since eight million male sterilisations were conducted coercively and haphazardly during the draconian Emergency period. Even now horror stories of three decades gone by give shudders to politicians, especially in the Hindi belt. With no other terminal option available, millions of women have perforce to undergo tubal ligations having already borne the brunt of unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions. The recent resurrection of the vasectomy programme comes as a welcome surprise. Madhya Pradesh has doubled vasectomies in the span of just one year from 7,000 to over 15,000. Haryana has shown higher and higher performance each passing year. Punjab has quadrupled the number of vasectomies in a matter of one year. Rajasthan has upped the vasectomy performance from just 1,700 during 2003-04 by almost five-times. On October 6, in Vadodara, nearly 900 vasectomies were performed and hundreds of men had come willingly for this outpatient procedure. At every health facility, ANMs and village women togged up in their best attire escorted the "acceptors" for vasectomy. Surgeries progressed speedily and while the patients waiting their turn, paranthas, enthusiastic counselling and a bag full of condoms were kept in readiness to complete the day's work. Whether the carrot was the Rs 200 motivation money or the Rs 1,000 compensation for acceptors, an enormous response was evident. But India's annual vasectomy total remains less than a 10th of the pre-Emergency levels, despite hundreds of surgeons having acquired the Chinese non-scalpel skill. In India, vasectomies are treated as the poor man's option. In some Latin American countries vasectomy has been presented as an alternative to female sterilisation. What is needed is for decision-makers to stop worrying about resurrecting the ghost of 1975 and understand that our population growth is having a detrimental effect on maternal and infant mortality.   October 23, 2007   The Pioneer

Fertility Rate Dips in Pakistan, Contraceptive Awareness Rises.   The fertility rate among women in Pakistan has dipped from 5.6% in 1990-91 to 4.1% in 2004-06, attributed to rising use of contraceptives. The trend is more in Punjab than other provinces. Women bear the brunt of controlling childbirth. Half of married women use contraceptives and few know about the use of condoms by males. Female sterilisation is on the rise and 84% children are breastfed in the first year of birth. The study was done by the research arm of the Population Welfare ministry, funded by USAID, to collect reliable estimates on pregnant women and family planning usage. The last such survey was done in 1990-91.   October 02, 2007   Indian Muslims website

Family Planning Helps Kon Tum Village Thrive.   Kontum Ko Pang Village has 217 households with more than 1,000 people, most ethnic minorities. In the past, more than half of the families had between five and six children, and many suffered poverty. But recently, most young couples have one or two children. The village has about 60 young couples, and only three of them have more than two children. The others have used modern contraceptive methods, obeying the regulations of the village. This is due to the effort of the village's people who want to build a better life, for themselves and for their children. Every Monday the head of the village takes a few minutes to tell stories about family planning, effective contraceptives and the harms of having too many children. Collaborators visit each family to encourage newly married husbands and wives to use proper contraceptives. Y Lim is one of the women in the village praised for her family planning practise. She got married at 21, but didn't have her first child for another three years. She waited until they had a stable income. Now she has two children who are well-behaved and excel at their studies. They have been able to afford adequate accommodations and two family motorbikes. Y Lim is attending classes to improve her business skills. Y Lim's family is one of many in the village practising modern birth-control methods, ensuring that the children have a brighter future.   September 26, 2007   Vietnam News Agency

Family Planning Success Stories in Sub-Saharan Africa.   Malawi, Zambia, and Ghana, with limited resources, have seen growth in contraceptive use and fertility decline, despite poverty and illiteracy in a predominately rural population. In Malawi, agencies worked through the Ministry of Health. Dedicated individuals maintain motivation and sustain programs. Research can lead to large-scale programs if there is involvement of stakeholders and if it is followed by action to implement recommendations. Improving the logistics for contraceptives is key to strengthening family planning. Mobilization of partnerships with the private and civil sector society can be an effective complement to the system. Bringing services to the doorstep via outreach is an effective way to get services to hard-to-reach, populations, but needs to be widespread. This is important for people living in rural areas. Community-based distributors (CBD) also raise awareness of family planning and refer women for services. The introduction of a range of methods into family planning has raised contraceptive use. Behavior Change is a necessary part of holistic programming; neglecting it will diminish program impact. Exposure to radio and TV was associated with increased contraceptive use in Zambia. Training must build clinical and counseling skills and also address biases. Clinical Officers as well as physicians can and do provide female sterilization. Registered Nurses and Nurse-Midwives can provide Depo-Provera(r) and intrauterine devices. Involving men proved to be an important factor in program success.   August 20, 2007   The Info Project

Jamaica;: Women Having Less Children, Owning More Businesses.   Once you educate and liberate your women, everything else takes off, and in several decades we have seen a dramatic increase in women opting to have careers, getting educated, and becoming liberated. Women are having one or two children, and later, due largely to Jamaica's family planning programme. The total fertility rate has fallen, reaching 2.5 children per woman in 2002. In 1997, the fertility rate stood at 2.8 children per woman. This number continued to decline to 2.21 in 2001, 2.05 in 2002, 1.99 in 2003 and 1.93 in 2004. 20% of female-run businesses have been in existence for over 20 years, 57% are sole proprietorships or partnerships, 76% operate from well-defined business plans and 34% are college or university-educated. The Bureau of Women's Affairs monitors government policy on women. The Association of Women's Organisations of Jamaica (AWOJA) co-ordinates women's organisations islandwide. Women's Crisis Centres help those in dire straits. The Women's Political Caucus facilitates participation in politics. The Women's Construction Collective trains women in construction. Woman Inc runs a crisis centre and shelter.   August 14, 2007   Jamaica Observer

Pakistan;: Population Welfare Programmes Achieve Success.   In Pakistan the fertility rate is down to 4.0 and growth rate to 1.8% per year. The population had reached 156.26 million, 81.1 million male and 75.2 million female. The total fertility rate declined from 6.0 in 1984 to 4.0 in 2005. Maternal mortality declined from 500 in 1991 to 350-400 per 100,000 life births in 2005. The female population 15-49 years was 39.2 million which was 52.1% of total female population. Life expectancy of females had risen to 66 from 61 years in 1991, for male expectancy was 64 years. The population ministry was pursuing awareness campaign and rise in female' mean age at marriage from 21.7 years in 1991 to 23.4 years was a testament to its success. The contraceptive prevalence rate had risen from 11.8 in 1991 to 36.0. The credit also goes to media that had adopted an active role in creating awareness about over-population, especially at the grassroots level. The government was encouraging public-private partnerships to help achieve their targets.   June 26, 2007   Associate Press of Pakistan

Senegal;: What the Rest of Africa Could Learn About AIDS.   The HIV infection rate in Senegal is 0.9%, lower than in African countries such as Namibia (19.6%), South Africa (18.8%) and Botswana (24.1%). What is Senegal doing right? The Senegalese government has taken an active role in the sex education of its citizens. In 1986, the government launched a massive prevention program, pouring resources into AIDS education. The Senegalese brand of Islam dictates there is little opportunity for teenagers to be alone together. The lack of alcohol plays a role in disease prevention. Senegal's sex worker registration system, in place since 1969, provides prostitutes with weekly health care and free condoms, 100% of sex workers surveyed said they use condoms with every customer. But there are other reasons for the country's low AIDS rate, including the early and intensive efforts by the country's powerful imams to educate their congregations about AIDS. While imams limit their sermons to discussions of abstinence and fidelity, doctors are often on hand to handle practical instruction and clinical questions. Teaching people to use condoms is a contradiction of Islamic law. The imam teaches fidelity in marriage and abstinence before marriage. Outside the mosque, he said, he can discuss HIV and AIDS more directly and, like many Senegalese imams, he refers congregants to a local clinic or doctor. Imams enjoy enormous political and cultural power in Senegal. Senegal's anti-AIDS strategy provides a blueprint for other countries struggling to contain the spread of the disease. Another of Senegal's successful HIV/AIDS prevention techniques is frank, open and comprehensive sex education beginning at age 12, and AIDS awareness training starting as early as 1st grade. It provides peer counselors to students and sponsors family life education clubs in schools. Senegalese girls have delayed sex three years longer than their mothers' generation, and condom use has risen threefold from 10 years ago, to nearly 70%. Comprehensive sex education, including information about condoms and how to use them, is one of the most important weapons in the fight against AIDS. In Senegal and in Uganda, where the HIV rate has fallen to about 6%, the governments were quick to implement "Abstinence, Be Faithful and Use Condoms", approach. Senegal's policy of legalized prostitution means the country is ineligible for PEPFAR funding, so it relies on donations from the UNFPA and the Global Fund. That means Senegal's teachers and community leaders are free to discuss condom use as part of a larger prevention message.   April 23, 2007   Chicago Tribune

Population Growth Rate Drops to 1.8%.   Pakistan's population growth rate has dropped from 2.1% to 1.8% per year. Officials stated that they plan to bring the rate down to 1.3% by 2020. The Ministry credited the media for adopting an active awareness program about the implications of over-population.   January 29, 2007   Daily Times

Beijing Women Don't Have a Child Until They Are 29.   The average childbearing age of Beijing women rose to 28.83 in 2005 from 27.24 in 2000. In 2005 for one hundred Beijing women, there were only 68 children. Before 1974, the fertility rate was around 2.6 children per woman but decreased when the family-planning policy was implemented in 1973. By the mid and late 1990s, the fertility rate of Chinese women had dropped to about 1.8. Employment pressures, delayed wedlock and longer life expectancy have all influenced women's childbearing age. In the 1990s, a Chinese woman would marry at 22 but now the age has climbed to 24.   January 12, 2007   Xinhua General News Service

Managed Birth Rate to Rein in Nation's Population Explosion.   Viet Nam's population will stabilise at about 115-120 million people by the middle of the 21st century. Family planning is an important part of reproductive healthcare. The lowering of the birth-rate will help improve living standards. Viet Nam has unveiled a programme that implements reproductive healthcare and family planning under the Cairo model. The country's population will face more difficulties, including how to improve living conditions. From the Human Development Index (HDI), Viet Nam ranks 107th out of 184 countries. From individual HDI criteria, the country's average income of US$650 per person per year places Viet Nam on the list of impoverished nations. Vietnam will come off the list if the country reaches an annual per capita income of $1,000. At the current development level and with a stable replacement birth-rate, Vietnam will reach this goal in the next 10 years. The country's GDP has been increasing at 8% annually, while population has gone up by 1.3-1.4%. When parents have children, expenses for feeding, housing and education are high. It takes time for children to become contributing members of society. Therefore, if we work on population, we will reduce the social burden.   January 10, 2007   Vietnam News Service

Infant Mortality on Par with Developed Nations in Las Tunas, Cuba.   The Cuban province of Las Tunas has an infant mortality rate of 4.76 deaths per thousand live births in 2006, on a par with developed nations and 1.76 lower than last year. Among the factors that contributed is the expansion of the Infant-Maternal Program to the remotest communities. The services provided at the maternity homes, where future mothers with health problems are hospitalized, were also a key. Las Tunas is among the provinces with less qualified medical personnel and a weaker healthcare infrastructure, yet has equalled those that have traditionally had better results. Five years ago, Las Tunas reported 12.9 deaths per thousand live births. Cuba has achieved the best results to reduce infant mortality. Over the past few years the country's rate has ranged between five and seven, very similar to the statistics of many developed nations.   January 09, 2007   Periodico26.com

Cuba Leads in Sustainable Development.   Cuba is the only country in the world with sustainable development, and registered a 12.5% increase in its GDP during the last 12 months. In 2007, Cuba will assign 22.6% of its GDP for public health and education. Spending for health, education, culture, sports, security and social assistance represent 69% of the 2007 budget. The progress of countries toward sustainable development can be assessed using the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of well-being, and the ecological footprint as a measure of demand on the biosphere. As world population grows, less biocapacity is available per person. In 2003, Asia-Pacific and Africa regions were using less than world average per person, while the European Union countries and North America had crossed the threshold for high human development. Only Cuba qualified for sustainable development. The Havana government has organized a socialist society with a high level of literacy, education, long life expectancy, low infant mortality and low energy consumption. It is the world's leader in organic agriculture, and is making contributions to medical research, not to mention that Cuban doctors are serving the people in poor developing countries. Cuba has developed a considerable research capability. Castro declared: Humanity is going through difficult times, plus a non-stop consumption process typical of the globalized imperialist system.   January 07, 2007   Canadian Dimension

Brazil's Population to Grow Older by 2030.   A longer life expectancy and lower birth rates indicate the Brazilian population will grow older in the next 24 years. The country's demographic pattern started to change in 1991, when longevity became more common and birth rates fell. Brazil needs to get ready for the elderly population to come.   December 15, 2006   Xinhua

Cuba;: Addressing Aging Population.   Cuba has the highest life expectancy and lowest birth rates and a dwindling population. In 13 years the retired people will outnumber the labour force. The Cuban media has run a candid coverage of a phenomenon that promises to wreak havoc on a strained social service. The effort to sustain the socialist society is being constantly challenged by emigration, aging adults and childless women. Since 1978, Cuba's fertility rate can no longer sustain current population levels. During the 1960s and 1970s, Cuba's annual birth rate was about 250,000. In 2005, there were slightly more than 120,000. Seniors 60 and older make up about 16% of Cuba's population. By 2025, 26% of Cubans will be elderly and Cuba will join the 11 countries with the world's oldest populations. Among the causes are housing shortages, high cost of living, lack of day-care centres and goods like children's clothing and the migration of adults of child-bearing age. Advances for women in the workforce and availability of birth control also contributed. Cuba's population rate started to slip in the 1950s. If communism collapses Cuba is likely to witness a massive outward migration of youth. Cuba has about 300,000 people over the age of 80, but the government has focused its attention on infant mortality and educating children. The Cuban health system is not geared toward the catastrophic illnesses of older people. Elderly people earn less than $10 a month from pensions, so many are street vendors who say they were forced to return to the workforce because they could not survive on their incomes.   Karen Gaia says: Cuba is unique in that it has one of the best health care systems, best education system, lowest infant mortality rate, and lowest birth rate among the developing world. But Cuba is a poor country due to the trade embargo and the economic and brain drain resulting from the emmigration of the wealthier people of Cuba. If it were not so poor, perhaps it would not lose so many of its people. Perhaps it was a mistake for Cuba to send health care workers overseas to help other poor countries.   December 08, 2006   Miami Herald

India;: Just 0.8% Men Sterilised.   Only 19.3% children in Delhi under three were breastfed within one hour of birth while 34% children were only breastfed till five months of age. In family planning, 23% women had gone in for sterilisation while only 0.8% men were sterilised. Nearly 23.3% couples used condoms. Over 16% women have experienced spousal violence, nearly 70% women participated in household decisions. Men and women in Delhi are obese. The immunisation rate of children is low. Anaemia is a big problem. But Delhi's fertility rate stands at 2.13, which is perfect. Married women in Delhi seem to have accepted the two child norm. Over 92% live with two children and didn't want a third. Over 70.7% of mothers who had two daughters didn't want a third pregnancy in the hope of a male child.   November 30, 2006   Times of India

Institutional Delivery Brings Down Mortality Rate.   By encouraging women to go to hospitals for deliveries, India has reduced maternal mortality from 398 per 100,000 births in 1997-98 to 301 in 2002-03. A total of 4,484 maternal deaths from 1.3 million births to 14.4 million females aged between 15 and 49 years were investigated during 1997-2003. Based on about 26 million births in 2004, nearly 78,000 maternal deaths are estimated in India in that year. The leading causes of death have been haemorrhage 38%, sepsis 11% and abortion 8%. Seven states, including Karnataka, are performing poorly. Uttar Pradesh leads in avoidable deaths during childbirth. Uttar Pradesh 517, Assam 490, Rajasthan 445, Madhya Pradesh 379, Bihar 371 and Orissa 368 with MMR ranging between 517 and 358 still remain a cause of concern. As in childbirths, India has managed to reduce rate of infant mortality from 80 per 100,000 in 1990-91 to 58 per 100,000 2004. Expectant mothers opting for institutional delivery will be given Rs.2,000 at the time of child birth. In the villages, the incentive is being provided through young women known as ASHAS. Incentives given to men and women opting for sterilisation is also being enhanced to Rs.800 to encourage people to have spaced out children and small families.   November 06, 2006   Telugo Portal

Vietnam;: Yen Bai Brings Down Birth Rate.   The number of third children born in the mountainous northern province of Yen Baito families dropped by 24 to 877 compared to the previous year. The province has been able to reduce the population growth rate to 1.3%. The success has been attributed to a network of 3,500 full-time workers and volunteers. Half received training in communication and were dispatched to areas where they raised awareness of family planning. Local authorities brought information about family planning to commune and hamlet meetings. With funding of nearly VND7 billion, the province has prioritised family planning services in communes with particularly high birth rates. The project has made credit available to open small businesses and modernise farming. Last year more than 2,000 people in 19 communes were provided with loans. As a result living standards have improved, as has awareness about the need for family planning. At least 66% of married couples have sought out contraceptives and many women have been provided with gynaecological check-ups. Pregnant women have received pre-natal check-ups, iron vitamins and vaccinations. The province has been listed among 43 cities and provinces nation-wide with low birth rates but still faces difficulties. Some districts only enacted policies in the third quarter of last year. Worse, the allowances paid to population workers remains low and at odds with the workers' increasing number of tasks. However, the province will reduce its birth rate further to 1.3%; decrease the number of malnourished children to 26%; and increase the number of married couples using contraceptives to 68%. The province has set a target to reduce the population growth rate to 1.25 per cent by 2010.   August 14, 2006   Viet Nam News

Zimbabweans Opt for Fewer Children.   Most Zimbabweans are opting to have between two and three children. The drop in population growth is largely a result of the empowerment of the girl, which has seen girls spending more time at school and opting to pursue careers before becoming mothers. The primary health care system has also played a part in the reduction. In 1981 the average number of children per woman was 7. By 1994 it had dropped to 5 and in 1999 to 4. The use of contraceptives and economic factors have also contributed to this change. The average of children now stands at 3. Most couples were opting to have at least two to three children while the phenomenon of having one child was no longer considered odd. UNFPA is targeting young people who are threatened with poverty, illiteracy, risks of pregnancy and HIV. It recognised that investment in young people promoted social and economic growth. The key to these efforts was keeping girls in school, building life skills, delaying marriage and pregnancy until adulthood and preventing HIV.   July 12, 2006   Africa News Service

Fast Developing Vietnam Sees Smaller Families.   There is a trend towards small families in Vietnam. The number of family members was reduced to 4.61 in 1999 from 5.22 in 1979. Family sizes differ depending on an areas developmental level. The Red River Delta region has the lowest family size with an average of 4.1, and the northwestern mountainous region, with over five to a family, is the highest family size in the nation. Smaller-sized families provide more female equality and better care for children, but they pose challenges to traditions such as taking care of the elderly and the establishment of good child characteristics. Up to 30% in Ha Noi said they have not had time to teach their children beneficial characteristics. The trend that married children live apart from parents has driven old people into a danger of loneliness and economic difficulties. All Vietnamese families face problems such as drug addiction, prostitution and street children. Agencies and social organisations have worked together to increase public awareness to build a model of sustainable families. Vietnam Family day is celebrated every June 28 with activities to raise public awareness against social evils involving the family.   June 27, 2006   Nhan Dan

Tunisia a Model Muslim Country for Women's Emancipation.   Tunisia, which is celebrating 50 years of independence from France, is an African and Arab as well as Muslim nation of 10 million people. Thanks to its close proximity to Europe, its quest for education, a stable democratic government and a diverse culture, Tunisia has become one of the most liberal corners of the Arab world. In 50 years, Tunisia has had only two leaders, and has won praise for its remarkable economic success. Nearly 80% of its population is considered middle class. The poverty rate has dropped from 33% in 1967 to about 4.2% in 2004. Almost 90% of the citizens own their own houses, and have access to education, health facilities, and clean drinking water. There is virtually no problem of religious extremism in Tunisia. There is no place for religious extremism in the country. Polygamy is prohibited. Tunisia's entry into the newly-established United Nations Human Rights Council shows that it has great support and respect among UN members. The Tunisian government has succeeded in these things because it has three strong pillars of support. They are women, workers and the business community. Tunisia has all the qualities necessary to become a model for Muslim countries in protecting women's rights and promoting gender equality. President Ben Ali emphasized the importance of women and women's rights in the country's development. Ben Ali's government has maintained good relations with labor unions by consistently raising minimum wages. The business community, which has benefited from pro-market policies, has always extended its full support to the government. Ben Ali wants to raise the economic growth target to 6.3% in the coming years to cut the unemployment rate to 10% by 2010. He also aims to double the per capita income of Tunisians to 8,000 dinars.   More on Tunisia from the CIA factbook: Population growth rate: 0.99%; Total fertility rate: 1.74 children born/woman; Toxic and hazardous waste disposal is ineffective and poses health risks; water pollution from raw sewage; limited natural fresh water resources; deforestation; overgrazing; soil erosion; desertification.   May 27, 2006   Jakarta Post

Jamaica: Women Are Having Fewer Babies; 10 Years Later..   According to the 2002 Jamaica Reproductive Health Survey, the total fertility rate has consistently fallen over the past 27 years, reaching 2.5 children per woman in 2002 an 11% fall from 1997. In 1974, the government officially integrated family planning services with the primary health care programme, increasing the number of health centres offering family planning. By the end of the decade, an island-wide network of family planning clinics was operating and birth rates had decreased. The government joined with international organisations to educate women and their partners about sexual health and the use of contraceptives. Women who want to move ahead in their careers normally have fewer children. The UNPF and the Ministry of Health have been providing programmes where they educate adolescents about family planning, and partnered with the Women's Centres to target young people to bring about an awareness of sexual health and the use of contraceptives. Women are now more concerned about their sexual health. In 1997, the fertility rate stood at 2.8 children per woman, 3 years later that number decreased to 2.25. This continued to decline to 2.21 in 2001, 2.05 in 2002, 1.99 in 2003 and 1.93 in 2004. Women in the age group 20-24 had the highest number of births - 99 per 1,000. Meanwhile, the decline in 2002 was evident in younger age groups - from 112 births for every 1,000 women 15-19 years in 1997 to 79 in 2002, and from 163 to 124 for age group 20-24. However, the number of women in the 25-29 age group who had children rose from 112 to 118. Women in rural areas had a fertility rate of 2.8, while the rate for women in the Kingston Metropolitan Area was 2.4. Women in other urban areas had a fertility rate of 2.2.   May 22, 2006   Jamaica Observer

Vietnam UNFPA Experts Confirm Nation's Declining Population Growth Rate.   UNFPA confirmed Vietnam's fertility rate decline over the past 15 years and it will continue to decline. The decline reflected the slowing of population growth during the past 15 years, which would help the country's population stabilise at 115-120 million. The report negated the widely maintained view that the country was going through a "baby boom". However, questions were raised on the reported increase in the number of third births. The new report, based on the 2005 population survey is an attempt to provide unequivocal answers to questions and provides a concise summary of the situation.   May 09, 2006   Vietnam News Service

Brazil's Population Forecast to Increase by More Than 40 Percent by 2050.   Brazil's population will grow more than 40%, adding about 78 million people by mid-century, despite declining birth rates that will lead to an aging citizenry. By 2050, it will have close to 260 million inhabitants, based on data compiled in 2004, when the population stood at 182.1 million. The population-growth rate has been slowing due to lower fertility and birth rates. Between 1991 and 2004, the birth rate measuring the number of babies born per 1,000 inhabitants, went from 23.4% to 20.6%. During the same period, the fertility rate dropped, from 2.7 births per woman to 2.3. The number of Brazilians aged 70 or older will rise. In 2004, 7.7 million, or 4.1% of the country's total population, were 70 or older. By 2050 Brazil's this will be 34.3 million.   Brazil's birth rate is still above replacement level (usually 2.1); its population growth will not go below zero until many years after replacement level birth rate is reached.   April 12, 2006   Associated Press

Indonesia: Family Planning Program Prevented 80 Million Births.   The Family Planning program in Indonesia has prevented about 80 million births since 1970. Indonesia's population would have surpassed 300 million if the government had not implemented the program. The country s environment would have been much worse if Indonesia was over populated. The current population is burdening the environment as evident from the landslides and floods due to deforestation. The government is endeavoring to improve the quality of human resources and at the same time control the population in an effort to build a prosperous community. Economic growth and improvement of the quality of life will be hard to accomplish if the population continues to increase. Low-income families tended to have more children therefore the family planning program was mainly intended for the former. The program in Indonesia was considered successful especially during the 1980s and 1990s. Many developing countries sent their personnel to Indonesia to observe and study the program.   April 04, 2006   Antara

South Korea: 1 in 3 Married Women Rejects Motherhood.   One in three married Korean women say it is ok to have no children. Single men and women prefer to have only one child. Half of single women said it is better not to tie the knot at all. The study was based on interviews with 3,800 married women between the ages of 20 and 44 and 2,670 single women and men in 2005. The birth rate stood at 1.16 in 2004, lower than those of industrialized countries - the United States (2.04), France (1.89) and Japan (1.29). Couples avoid having more children because of high education and childcare expenses. On average, a Korean couple spends half their income on their children's education. Parents with one child spend 23.8% of their income on education, 59% for two children and 63.9% for three. The higher the children's grades are, the more money is spent on private education. Other reasons for Korea's low birth rate, including the change need for children and marriage, instability of employment, difficulty in meeting expenses. A whopping 61.2% of women quit their jobs before or after marriage and half of working women stopped working after delivering their first child. Korean women abandon all hope for having children because they find it hard to be society's ideal mother who excels at work and at home. Unless the patriarchal culture changes and men's behavior changes, it will be hard to curb the decreasing birth rate. Some 82% of single women said they want to have more than two children, but after marriage, they realize it is challenging to balance both work and family. A working woman spends twice as much time as her working husband taking care of children and doing housework. And 54% of working women said housework is divided 'unfairly.'      March 23, 2006   Korea Herald

Is Too Few People the New Problem?.   Around the world, people are having fewer children which could be our best hope for the salvation of the planet. Among the nations with the lowest fertility levels are relatively rich countries like Italy and Spain, but they are matched by still-developing nations like Romania and Ukraine. Even France and Ireland are only cranking out an average of 1.8 children per woman, well below the 2.1 that's needed to sustain current population levels. Populations are declining in seven of the 25 EU member countries, and the trend will continue. Population numbers will rise gradually over the next two decades to about 470 million, thanks mainly to immigration, before falling by 20 million people by mid-century, when immigration will no longer be able to offset rising death rates and falling birthrates. Demographer David Coleman dates declining birthrates in Europe to the social-welfare state that began in the 1930s. In a society veering away from agriculture, children were no longer worth it, and other explanations include women's rights, increasing female participation in the workforce, and birth-control programs. Outside Europe, depopulation is occurring in Japan and the government estimates that by 2050 there will be 25 million fewer Japanese. But birthrates are falling even in developing nations. People are having fewer babies and 20 developing countries have fertility levels below the 2.1 replacement level. China's policies have driven its birthrate from 5.9 in the 1970s to sub-replacement level. An even larger decrease occurred in Iran, which dropped from seven births per woman in the early '80s to around the replacement level today. Even though birthrates are falling, we're decades away from feeling the effects. Even where birthrates are below replacement level, populations continue to grow and there's a time lag before the effects are felt. China will add 260 million people by 2025. In much of Europe and Japan, while rural areas are emptying out and birthrates are plunging, cities are coping with an influx of newcomers. In Rome, squatters are angry about spiraling housing costs caused by overcrowding. Meanwhile, in the former East Germany, they're chopping up old communist apartment blocks to make nice low-density family homes. After 2050, the U.N.'s estimates say the world will grow more slowly, hitting 10 billion people in 2200 before stabilizing or entering a period of slow decline. In Europe, some of the effects are being felt. The decline in population is opening room for species that have been pushed back by humans with an increase in animals such as wolves and deer. A smaller population is a more sustainable one. A drop in numbers could lead to a drop in energy use and less strain on the environment. Shifting populations bring their own concerns. Europe's population is still rising due to immigration and demographers warn that Europe could fissure into two castes: childless Brahmins and the foreign underclasses who serve and shell out taxes to support them. A declining population is an aging one. Older people tend to have more disposable income, and consume more. And ultimately, aging societies will face budgetary pressures, Social Security and other pension plans, that will leave less resources for investment in environmentally friendly goods. With the global population zooming upward, it's hard to drum up much talk about future depopulation. Progressives haven't been able to blend commitments to reproductive choice with sustainability, so raising the banner for population control has been left up to a few lonely voices on the left and the anti-immigration right. Population control is unfashionable and taboo, and has fallen off of a lot of agendas because of political correctness. We have to think seriously about the world's population and what kind of levels can be sustained in the long term. In the playground of public policy, population decrease is seen as a problem, not an opportunity. Several countries offer generous pro-family benefits, while others are tinkering with their retirement systems to keep older residents working longer. But serious discussion about proper population levels doesn't really happen. The issue of population, once a key part of the green agenda, is today limited to a few demographers, think-tankers, and wonks. If countries can manage with fewer people, we could be onto something big.      December 14, 2005   Grist Magazine

Vietnamese Woman Has 2.1 Children on Average.   Each Vietnamese woman has, on average, 2.1 children, compared with 2.7 in other Southeast Asian countries. The average number of births a woman in urban areas has is 1.7, while in rural areas it is 2.3. The survey showed that the percentage of people using modern contraceptive methods increased to 65.7%, helping to reduce abortion. Vietnam plans to pour 221.5 million US dollars into curbing population growth from 2006 to 2010. The money will be mainly used to ensure that each couple have no more than two children so that the population will remain stable at around 88 million by 2010. Under a recent resolution of the Communist Party the country's population should grow gradually, and then remain stable at 115-120 million in mid-21st century. The resolution stresses that party members must be good examples in following population policies and family planning.      December 02, 2005   Xinhua General News Service

Brazilian Birth Rate is Steady as Population Ages.   Brazil's birth rate began falling in the mid-1960s, and is now more or less stable. The rate has been 2.1 children per woman for the last two years. In 1981, 58.2% of the population were 24 years of age of less. That number dropped steadily: in 1993 it was 52.4%; in 1999 it was 49%; and in 2004, it was 46%. Meanwhile there are more older people. In 1981, the population over 60 was 6.4% of the total; in 1993 it was 8%; and in 2004, it was 9.8%. In Brazil 51.3% of the population is female. But in the over-60-age group, females make up 56% of the population. In 1993, the average was 4 people per home; in 2004, it fell to 3.5. And between 1999 and 2004, the number of households with one inhabitant rose from 8.9% to 10.5%.      November 28, 2005  

Once Population Time-bomb, Bangladesh Registers Fastest Declines in Fertility Rate.   Bangladesh has eliminated the gender bias in primary and secondary education and attained dramatic declines in infant and maternal mortality. Bangladesh has achieved one of the fastest declines in fertility rates in the world. Bangladesh is at the top for low income, developing countries and for South Asia in particular. The reason is probably an amalgamation of history, accidents and policy choices beginning with the war of independence. The post-war construction saw the emergence of independent service providers through aid and self-help that catalysed community mobilisation. Mobilisation of a risk-taking population, has surely been an important contribution but two accidents have been important for the country's development. First, the oil-boom saw labour migration to the Middle East and a flow of remittances to the rural economy. Second, the arrival of the garment industry to Bangladesh, jumping over Sri Lanka then in the midst of ethnic tension and India immersed in import-substitution. Single rural women found employment in the formal sector. The remittances and garment industry saw an infusion of private income and wealth into the rural economy that should not be underestimated. The active choices made by policy-makers to capture the opportunities have been equally vital. The remittances allowed Bangladesh to manage the unification of its exchange system and provide incentives for the economy to become outwardly oriented. The remittances enabled it to be implemented at a faster pace. Garment exports were scaled up by the decision of government to provide "free trade zone" status to garment producers. Equally important has been a partnership between government and the non-government service providers. From education, health, to the provision of micro-credit, this has led to the scale-up of service to rural households. Public sector agencies were supported, but balanced by investment in alternative providers. This partnership was around community service delivery directly to rural households. Agricultural liberalisation coupled with the technological benefits of the Green Revolution enabled Bangladesh to shift from a food-deficit to a self-sufficient nation. Quietly, Bangladesh dismantled its "licence raj" in the 80s and the final boost to the rural sector has come from a sustained growth to stabilise around 5% through the 90s. The pace of change is impressive as Bangladesh had to address issues of post-conflict democracy for close to two decades. The lessons suggest that while economic growth is needed to support social development, it is not sufficient. The focus on growth was matched by an equal focus on service delivery. But service delivery was not simply more public sector expenditures, it was based on a willingness to engage in reform of service delivery that strengthened the accountability of providers to the citizens and communities. It was also based on the evidence that without the State as a partner, it would be difficult to support the innovations of communities. Changes in policy were not a result of a well-oiled policy but of political economy clashes between stakeholders within and outside the country. Donors have been an important player in Bangladesh's successes. Decades of gains can be erased if a country's political and administrative systems do not keep pace with the demands of its citizens and the global context. If the past decades have been a challenge for Bangladesh the next decade will be a test to sustain it.      November 17, 2005   Indian Express

In Turkey, Muslim Women Gain Expanded Religious Authority.   Women have brought change to Turkey's Muslim order in recent years. Two years ago, women were appointed for the first time to lead groups of Turks making the pilgrimage to Mecca. And last year,a government body that oversees mosques and trains religious leaders, added 150 women preachers and is selecting a group of women who will serve as deputies to muftis. They'll monitor imams in local mosques, particularly as it relates to women. While these changes come from a growing demand from women for more religious education and Islamic intellectuals say they are also being forced by a new class of educated religious women who are demanding more rights. They are learning by reading and asking; for many women who come from traditional homes, religious education becomes a path to a kind of independence. It's a path that more women seem to be exploring; for example, one mufti's office has 583 women teaching courses on the Koran to women. Women now also make up the majority of students in the theology departments of several Turkish universities. In Islamic doctrine, men and women are equal. There are signs of loosening in Turkey, but Muslim orthodoxy says that women cannot lead prayers, particularly in the Arab Muslim heartland. Sunni preacher of Qatar issued a religious ruling, saying leadership in prayer is reserved for men only, and a women leading prayers might arouse men. Teaching in an Istanbul neighborhood, Seker tells the head-scarfed women that not all of the traditions they have been taught are part of Islam. She brings up the murder of young women considered to have damaged a family's honor that still take place in Turkey. There is no such thing in Islam, and to kill someone is the biggest sin. Seker acknowledges that her work might not sit well with the husbands as they feel like their throne is being shaken.      April 27, 2005   Christian Science Monitor

Come Gather Around Together: An Examination of Radio Listening Groups in Fulbari, Nepal.   Messages via mass media-based entertainment can improve family planning; audience participation in the form of listening groups may enhance their impact. In Fulbari (Nepal), a partnership between local government agencies, community leaders, audience members and program staff are complementing a mass media family planning initiative. The study demonstrated a relationship between radio listenership and behavior beyond the association with the radio program. Use of contraceptives among respondents exposed to both radio and listening groups is twice that of respondents who are exposed to neither.      April 08, 2005   John Hopkins CCP

Pakistan: Government to Embark Upon Maternal and Child Health Plan.   Pakistan prime minister Aziz said that the federal government and international agencies will embark upon a five-year programme at a cost of Rs 31.5 billion to achieve Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) for safe motherhood. The World Bank, USAID, DFID, Unicef and UNFPA have pledged to provide half of the cost. Under the MDGs the country has a target to reduce mortality by 75%, child mortality by 66% and extreme poverty by 50% by 2015. The statistics revealed that currently one mother dies every 20 minutes, while 350,000 annually bear the burden of maternal ill health and disability, 10 million children die every year. The high rates attributed to high fertility, low skilled birth attendance, low levels of female literacy, poverty, malnutrition and inadequate access to family planning services. The programme aims at gender equality, with an increase of lady health workers (LHW) to 100,000. Also 10,000 community-based Skilled Birth Attendants (SBA) to be trained and deployed nationwide during the next five years at an estimated cost of Rs 5,282 million. One SBA will serve a population of 10,000. Midwifery/LHW schools will be upgraded and a pool of tutors be trained. The government was focusing on literacy and empowerment of women where one-thirds of the representation has been given to women, while they represent 20% in Parliament. Emergency Obstetric Care services would be provided at an estimated cost of Rs 4,642 million. Another Rs 2,638 million would be spent on family planning services, Rs 7,770 million on child and neonatal health, Rs 1,813 million for management and organisation reforms, Rs 3,968 million on interventions and Rs 595 million on monitoring and evaluation framework. This amounts to Rs 34 per person per year, much below the international recommendation of Rs 180 per person per year for safe motherhood. The government expects a 50% contribution of donors. Mother is the nucleus of every society, and the ministry has needed over Rs 35 billion for improving mother and child health services across the country.      April 02, 2005   Business Recorder (Pakistan)

Don't Lose Hope.   The size of the family is shrinking all over the world because women want fewer children and have realized their advantages. Thirty-five years ago only one in seven women worldwide used contraception and they had an average of 6.1 children in developing countries. This has dropped to 3.1 and worldwide is just 2.8. Many developed countries are shrinking in population. A average of 2.1 leads to a stable population. If we establish an average Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.96 now, in 50 years the world's population will decrease to 5 billion. If it is slightly higher, at 2.18, the earth will have to support over 20 billion people by the year 2050. People choosing to have smaller families for three reasons, the availability of contraception, reduction of child mortality and empowerment of women. Thanks to the media and family planning programs, most people have access to information on child spacing. Improving child survival can decrease the population growth rate. Historically, when child mortality rate is high, parents have more children to assure that some survive. Lowering child mortality result in a lower TFR and lower growth rate. School enrollment of girls has more than doubled over the last three decades. Education and literacy are important because they raise women's aspirations and their ability to find employment outside the home. Education also helps mothers learn about contraception and mothering healthy children. Because they don't need to have many kids to work the fields, people have fewer children as they shift from rural to urban economies. Older age at marriage is another factor in slowing growth and people are starting their families later. Better-educated and mature mothers are likely to have healthier and smaller families. More couples are relying on permanent surgical contraception when they have completed their families. A TFR of 2.1 or less is the goal. It is unlikely that we will reach it soon, however. Although we have not solved the problem of population, we have made great strides. There is reason to be optimistic that excess population growth can be restrained if we devote sufficient resources to the problem.      April 2005   Richard Grossman

Vietnam to Curb Population Growth.   Vietnam is encouraging each couple to have no more than two children. Under a recent resolution of the Communist Party its population should grow gradually, and then remain stable at 115-120 million in mid-21st century. State cadres and party members must be good examples in following population policies and family planning, as well as persuading local people to do the same. Each Vietnamese woman had 2.23 children in 2004, up from 2.12 children in 2003, according to surveys. Local women in the central highlands region had most children: 3.1 per mother, and those in the Mekong delta had fewest children: 2 per mother. Vietnam now has a population of 82.1 million, including 41.7 million women. Up to 74% of Vietnamese people live in rural areas.      March 30, 2005   Xinhua General News Service

India: Muslim Women Opting for Family Planning.   More Muslim women across Bihar are opting for family planning and approaching state-run clinics and medical camps. Economic reasons and growing awareness propelled by education is credited with the change. Muslim leaders admit it is a major development for women who were until a few years ago shying away from even voicing their opinion on the subject. Most women breaking the earlier taboo are in the 22-35 year age group. Muslim women could not have thought of sterilisation until the 90s but the situation has changed now. Doctors and staff of health centres said the number of Muslim women going for family planning had increased in the last two to three years. But a large chunk of the Muslim population still views family planning as anti-Islam. The higher-income Muslims who have small families do not admit to practising family planning but the size of their family speaks for itself. In Bihar, the birth rate among Muslims is higher than among the general population. Muslims make up 16% per cent of the population of 83 million. In rural areas, only 10.8% of Muslim couples practise family planning compared to 22.9% among others. Almost half of Bihar's rural Muslims and 44.8% of urban Muslims are considered very poor.      March 15, 2005   Hindustan times

Solomon Islands: Mothers Cry for Recognition.   Solomons women have the responsibility for the health and education of their children and the living standards of their families. She is the foundation of Solomon Islands society. Yet she is the most vulnerable member of that society. When food is short she goes without; when there is no doctor she must deal with her frequent pregnancies and childrens crises; and when economies are mismanaged and incomes and quality of life indicators fall, she is the first to face the consequences. A substantial number of maternal deaths occur in the Solomon Islands each year. Beyond actions to ensure safe motherhood, Government (SIG) and the NGOs community must give greater emphasis to enhancing the role of women. There is no question that this is an area in which everyone must do more to provide women access to agricultural and small business credit and extension services, to remove legal obstacle to womens participation in economic life, and improve womens' access to education. An educated woman is better equipped to take advantage of opportunities; she is more likely to delay marriage to finish schooling and space her children. She is more likely to have fewer and healthier children. Womens and youth groups that have done an excellent job in bringing more knowledge to Solomons mothers and can play an even greater role. Let us create an environment in which Solomons mothers will not want so many pregnancies and give them a chance to be heard and participate in the decision making to shape a better future for our country and improve their role in the society with equality between men and women. This is a challenge to which all National Parliamentarians and people of Solomon Islands must respond. But the most critical players will be the Solomons mothers who are fighting to overcome poverty and gain more control over their destiny.      March 14, 2005   Soloman Star (Soloman Islands)

Mongolia: BBC Film to Feature Changes in Rural Maternal Health.   Mongolia's strategies to reduce maternal mortality are to be featured in a BBC World documentary series. It showcases successful approaches to improving maternal health in developing countries. The film maps the progress made by Mongolia in improving maternal health since services collapsed in the 1990s, when maternal mortality rate was 214 deaths per 100,000 live births. Since then a strategic approach has resulted in a steady reduction. This has been developed and implemented through partnerships with world organizations. Improvements have the annual maternal mortality rate dropping from 169.3 in 2001 to 99.8 in 2004. As the film will show, an essential element is the use of specially-trained staff located at the local 'bag' and 'soum' levels to provide maternal health services for women in the countryside, early monitoring and assessment of pregnant women, allowing health interventions to be delivered, and ensuring that women at a risk of complications are referred to the center hospitals. This has achieved almost universal coverage, an impressive achievement for a country facing barriers of distance and poor transport. Home visits use whatever transport is available and suitable: the health nurse travels horseback. Two weeks before delivery, all women are taken to dormitories in the hospitals. Another important element has been training, essential drugs and equipment provided to doctors for preventing complications. This has resulted in a significant drop in the numbers of women dying due to blood loss. A final factor has been improved access and education about contraception and birth spacing. In Mongolia, the birth rate dropped from 5.3 live births per woman in 1980, to 2.6 in 2000. This has meant that more women have been able to space births and doctors rarely see cases of severe maternal anemia due to consecutive pregnancies and childbirth. Support is common throughout rural Mongolia; for example, almost every household donated one sheep towards the repair of the local hospital's heating system. Local governors also made their vehicles available for the transport of pregnant women when the hospital's own vehicle was unavailable. Where governors are supportive and funds available, money has been provided to attract and retain medical staff. However problems face Mongolia's remote communities. In one hospital the heating system was not working, there was no running water and poor hygiene facilities. This hospital had a doctor, but many do not, as rural hospitals find it difficult to attract and retain staff. Rates of abortion remain high in Mongolia and while the number of reported cases of HIV is low, the rates of STDs such as syphilis and gonorrhea are high and have risen since the early 1990s.      March 11, 2005   TheUBPost

Kerala Women on Top, Says State's Economic Review.   Women in Kerala have higher literacy, more access to money and a greater say in family matters. The sex ratio is 1058 females per 1000 males, higher than the country average of 933. Females make up 16.37 million of the state's 31.84 million population. The life expectancy of women is 75.9 years compared to the 61.8 Indian average. Crime against women dropped in 2003 by 3.7% Rape cases declined by 24% and molestation by 5.5%. Torture cases, showed an increase of 1.1%. Women marry later - at an average of 22, compared to the country at 19.5. Sixty-three percent of the women marry after 21 compared to 25.9% in the country. Almost half the 4.9 million enrollments in the schools are of girls, and the state also has more women, 68% up to high school and 54% in arts and science colleges. More than 66% of the state's women have access to money compared to the country average of 59.6%. Women head more than 22% households in the state compared to 10.3% in the country.      February 03, 2005   Indo-Asian News Service

Developing World Births 'Falling'.   In the developing countries the average number of births has fallen from 5.9 in the 1970s to 3.9 in the 1990s. In 20 countries, births have fallen beneath the number needed to maintain current population and improved contraception is behind the fall. Planned families in China saw the most dramatic drop. Algeria, Iran, Mexico, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey have also reported declines. But in 21 sub-Saharan African countries, fertility has declined slowly or not at all. The 20 developing countries where fertility is at or below the level needed to sustain the population include China, Hong Kong, Macao, North Korea, Iran, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand, Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Barbados, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and Chile. Countries recording large falls in birth rates have governments that promote the use of contraceptives. Over half of all women now use contraceptives, compared with 38% during the 1970s. The developing world has seen a sharp increase from 27% using contraceptives in the 1970s to 40% by the 1990s.      January 26, 2005   BBC News

The Causes of Stalling Fertility Transitions.   An examination of fertility trends in countries with multiple DHS surveys found that in the 1990s fertility stalled in mid-transition in seven countries: Bangladesh, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kenya, Peru, and Turkey. In each, fertility was greater than 6 births per woman in the 1950s, and then declined to fewer than 5 births per woman in the early or mid-1990s, before stalling. The level of stalling varied from 4.7 births in Kenya to 2.5 births in Turkey. By 2000, a number of these countries had reached the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, and it was widely expected that countries that are still in transition will continue their declines until fertility drops to or even below replacement. This assumption has been incorporated into population projections made by the United Nations and the World Bank. Stalling is a neglected issue. A stall in fertility after democratic transition is underway has been rare in the past. A country is considered to have stalled if its fertility (TFR) failed to decline between two DHS surveys while the country is in mid-transition, that is, if its TFR is between 2.5 and 5 births per woman at the time of the most recent survey. By this definition, 20 DHS countries were mid-transitional and seven of these countries had experienced a stall. Findings suggest no major deterioration in contraceptive access during the stall, but levels of unmet need and unwanted fertility are relatively high and improvements in access to family planning methods would therefore be desirable. Socioeconomic development is considered the main cause of a decline over time in the benefits of children and a rise in their costs. These changes in the cost/benefit ratio lead parents to want fewer children, and mortality decline raises child survival so that families need fewer births to achieve the desired number of surviving children. These trends in turn raise the demand for birth control (i.e., contraception and induced abortion), and, to the extent this demand is satisfied, lower fertility results. Family planning programs facilitate this transition by reducing the cost of birth control (broadly defined to include social costs), thus raising the level of implementation of the demand for contraception and reducing the unmet need for contraception. Higher levels of socioeconomic development also reduce the cost of birth control. Other factors include real GDP per capita, child survival, and level of education, as well as the role of family planning programs as measured by a program effort index. In the mid-1990s, 36% of all pregnancies in the developing world were unplanned and 20% of all pregnancies ended in abortion (Alan Guttmacher Institute 1999). The existence of an unmet need for contraception, first documented in the 1960s, convinced policymakers that family planning programs were needed and would be acceptable and effective. It is widely believed that fertility is most responsive to improvements in human development, in particular in female education and child survival. This conclusion is strongly supported by the fact that replacement fertility has been achieved in some 17 very poor societies such as Sri Lanka and the state of Kerala in India. Although poor, these populations have high levels of literacy and female empowerment and low infant and child mortality. While the impact of GDP was not found to be a major factor, Kenya fertility has stalled at near 5 births per woman despite relatively high levels of literacy and schooling, but having low and deteriorating living standards. In some stalling countries (Kenya and Ghana) development indicators changed little, while in others socioeconomic development continued at a fairly rapid pace. However, the level of fertility relative to the level of development seems to play a role as a cause of stalls. In six out of the seven stalls, fertility was lower than expected for the level of development at the beginning. The reason for this is not known, but once this is the case fertility can subsequently be expected to move closer to the predicted level, thus making a stall more likely. Future research may show that the duration of a stall will depend on the pace of development following the stall onset. Stalls will be of shorter duration in countries where development proceeds rapidly than in countries where development has leveled off as well. Measures of unmet need and unwanted fertility showed no significant recent upward trend in the stalling countries, although Kenya experienced slight increases. In contrast to the near absence of change in the stalling countries, the non-stalling mid-transitional countries experienced substantial changes in fertility and its various determinants and these changes were all in the expected direction. That is, fertility and fertility preferences declined, while contraceptive use, the demand for contraception, and socioeconomic development indicators generally rose during the period between the two most recent DHS surveys. A country in which unwanted fertility is higher than a few tenths of a birth can especially benefit from further investments in family planning programs. It is difficult, however, to remove all unwanted childbearing because reasons other than access (e.g., fear of side effects and lack of spousal support) also play a role. Improvements in family planning services are most needed in countries such as Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, and Peru with the highest levels of unmet need and unwanted fertility. Countries in which wanted fertility has stalled well above the replacement level may need declines in preferences to complete their fertility transition. Such declines are usually achieved by improvements in socioeconomic conditions. Among the seven stalled countries, Kenya and Ghana have relatively high wanted fertility levels (3.6 and 3.7 births per woman, respectively), and their levels of development as measured by real GDP per capita, child survival, and proportion schooled are low and have leveled off. In these two countries improvements in development will almost certainly be needed for desired family size and actual fertility to fall substantially below current levels. In contrast, in Bangladesh, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, and Turkey wanted fertility has already dropped to about two births per woman and any further declines in overall fertility are likely to come from reductions in unwanted fertility.   This study does not seem to mention the factor of male preference.   2005   Population Council

Tunisia: Illiteracy Rate Continues to Drop .   Data collected within the Tunisian census has indicated a slowdown in population growth and an improvement in the standard of living of the population. It showed that the rate of literacy is at present about 80% and the rate of illiteracy has continued to drop. From 84.7% in 1956, to 46% in 1984, and 22.9% in 2004. For those between 10 and 29 years of age, illiteracy has come down from 24.8% in 1984 to 6% in 2004.      December 21, 2004   Al-Bawaba

UN Official Applauds Reproductive Health Advances in Cuba.   "What I have seen in the island nation in terms of sanitary conditions, reproductive and sexual health, as well as education is something I have not observed in any other country I visited in the past," said Obaid, of Saudi Arabia, who is on a three-day visit to Cuba. She noted that nearly all Cuban children are in school, the health services have a universal character, and the dangerous pandemic of HIV/AIDS is kept at a low rate, thanks to a correct government strategy. Obaid said the authorities have paid special attention to all the aspects of sexual and reproductive health and the island reached the 2015 world targets.      December 19, 2004   Xinhua General News Service

Dip in Population Growth of 0-4 Years Age Group.   The population of 0-4 years has gone up by 70.84 lakh between 1991 and 2001, less than half the increase of the preceding decade. The share of children below 4 in India's overall population has dropped from 12.55% in 1981 to 12.17% in 1991 and to 10.73% in 2001. Figures for Assam and Kashmir in 1991 have been left out. During 1981-1991, the fall was confined to Kerala and Tamil Nadu, in the subsequent decade, it spread to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Large parts of the country have diminishing toddler numbers who will form the parental base 15-20 years hence. Fertility rates have been coming down. Even if there is no clear-cut `demographic transition' for the country as a whole, something is underway in the southern States. The old model of setting up more and more primary schools may have little relevance in States such as Kerala, where evidence points to decreasing enrollment rates. Public delivery systems will have to shift emphasis from quantity to quality of services.      November 2004   Hindu (The)

Bangladesh Sets Target to Cut Population Growth Rate to One Percent by 2010.   Bangladeshi cabinet approved the draft of Policy 2004 (NPP 2004) that focuses on bringing down population growth rate to 1% by 2010 from the present 1.54% and aims to stabilize Bangladesh's population at 216 million by 2060. It has seven strategies including empowerment of women, human development and decentralization of programs. The Maternal mortality rate (MMR) in Bangladesh is 320 women out of every 1,000 live births. Infant mortality rate (IMR) has 70 infants die out of every 1,000. The new policy emphasizes women's reproductive health for 100% safe motherhood, and provides emergency obstetric services. It gives attention to increased contraceptive use, expand clinical services and maks home family planning services available. The policy proposes reproductive education for young people and parents. The policy also focuses on late marriage for girls, spacing of childbirth and awareness of sexually transmitted diseases. It addreses malnutrition, decline in arable land, pollution of environment and water, poverty, urbanization and unemployment. The draft stresses equal rights of women and men, protection for the elderly and minimum calories for growing children. To prevent people from migrating from rural areas, the policy proposes to increase employment in the agriculture sector and seeks to develop satellite towns, healthcare and education and employment in the cities. The challenge of the policy is how to translate it into action.      October 19, 2004   Xinhua General News Service

Indonesia: Family Planning on the Right Track.   In Indonesia family planning program has reached 96% of couples, compared to 86.3% in 1994, while the number of users rose to 60.3% from 52.1% in 1994. Indonesia joined 178 other countries in signing the ICPD in Cairo in 1994 and adopted the action plan that requires all countries to provide access to primary health and reproductive services by 2015. In a bid to reinvigorate the program, the government has deployed 73,000 midwives and 31,000 family planning workers to about 70,460 villages across the country. There are 44,000 doctors at clinics/hospitals, not to mention three million volunteers. However, the maternal mortality rate has declined from 397 per 100,000 births in 1994 to 307 in 2004, but remains worse than Thailand, which has only 44 per 100,000. Pregnant women go to midwives to get examined, but their delivery is by traditional midwives and they cannot deal with hemorrhage, the most common cause of maternal death.      October 11, 2004   Jakarta Post

Low Fertility Rate Reflects Well on South Africa; Improved Health Care, Education Key Factors.   South Africa has the lowest fertility rate on mainland Africa, attributed to improved health care and education in the rural areas. The population is continuing to urbanise and HIV was a major factor influencing population trends. The fertility rate would be 2.77% this year, and reflects the positive impact of the reconstruction and development programme. A key element was to improve primary health care and reproductive health services, especially in the rural areas. One immediate challenge was to accelerate the economic and social integration of youngsters into society and provide them with the skills and opportunities to play a productive role in the development of the nation. It is necessary to combat drug abuse, crime and other social ills that are affecting many of the youth.      October 07, 2004  

Sri Lanka: Population Growth Continues to Decline, Says Healthcare Minister.   Population growth in Sri Lanka has continued to decline, from 1.5% in the early 1990s to 1.1% today. Life expectancy is comparable to more developed countries, with 75.4 and 70.7 years respectively. Infant mortality has been reduced to 13 per thousand live births and the maternal mortality ratio is about 50 per 100,000 live/births. Per capita income has increased at a steady pace. Sri Lanka has consolidated on the achievements in the population, development and reproductive health fields with an acceleration of population and socio-economic change. Although HIV is relatively low, the Government is concerned of the potential threat and places high priority on the prevention and control of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. A policy on blood safety was developed in 1999. Continued reliance on open economic policies with a humane face and greater emphasis on human resource development have enabled Sri Lanka to achieve an average economic growth rate of 5% during the past decade, despite the armed conflict in the North and East of the country.      October 2004   Daily News

A Second Baby is Too Much to Bear; Shanghainese Can't Afford to Exploit Easing of One-child Policy.   An easing of Shanghai's one-child policy has failed to deliver the rush of applications from parents, with couples put off by the expense of raising a child. Only 40 couples from one district had applied since April, compared with 90 last year. An official put the reason down to the high cost of bringing up a child, together with competition for jobs on the mainland. Only better-off, well-educated couples were interested in having a second child and 4.48% were reluctant to have one child. People 18-30 wanted an average of 1.1 babies. The figure in 1983 was 2.04. After 11 years of falling population, Shanghai became the first mainland city to cancel subsidies for childless couples. The new regulation allows four different categories of remarried couples to have a second child, including married couples who were previously single parents and those who were themselves only-children. A court in Shenzhen fined a couple 780,000 yuan and sealed off their house for having more than one child. They were among nine couples fined "social fostering fees" for their extra children. The couple had their first boy in 1997. Last year the woman gave birth to twin boys.      September 21, 2004   Reuters

Japanese Women Live, and Like It, On Their Own; Gender Roles Shift As Many Stay Single.   Japan is undergoing a redefinition of gender roles as women enter the workforce and the result is the rise of financially independent Japanese women who are saying 'no' to men. Some luxury condos around Tokyo are being marketed strictly to women. The Tokyo Stock Exchange offered a workshop to get single women to invest. A jewelry firm is running advertisements where a single woman boasts she no longer needs a man to buy her gems. Women have discovered they can stay single and have fun without taking care of a man. In 2003, 54% of Japanese women in their late 20s were single, compared with 24% in 1980. 43% of Japanese men in their early thirties are unmarried. By 2020, 30% of Japanese households will be headed by singles. In Tokyo, it is more than 40%. The decline in marriage began with the economic slump in the 1990s, when men were were more reluctant to marry. But during the recession, Japanese women were courted by employers seeking cheaper labor. Japanese women lag behind women in other industrialized countries in the upper echelons of business and politics, but are well-established in the labor market. Last year, 40.8% of women were in the workforce compared with 35.9% in 1985. Japanese women have in the past been herded into marriage by tradition and financial necessity. But now a minority of single women are not waiting for marriage to build their dream houses. You can live comfortably as a single woman in Japan, but in the past it was difficult for women to have the income. The change is cited as a factor for the birthrate decline to 1.29 children, among the lowest rates in the world. Japan's population is expected to peak at 128 million in two years and then decrease 120 million by 2026 and 100 million by 2050. Will Japan have enough workers to run the economy and with fewer workers paying into the pension system that is on the verge of bankruptcy? Some Japanese men criticized women who refuse to retain their traditional roles one saying that that women who did not give birth should not receive pensions. One man said that "I want to come home and see my wife greeting me". Many single women say that traditional attitudes kept them from marrying. Single women do want to marry. One turned down a promising suitor because he expected her to quit her job to be a full-time wife and mother.      August 31, 2004   Washington Post

Brazil's Population Almost Doubles in 30 Years.   Brazil's population nearly doubled over three decades, but the birthrate is slowing. The population has soared from 90 million in 1970 to 181.8 million in 2004, but shows a drop in the country's birth rate. In 1960 it stood at 6 children per woman and dropped to 2.89 in 1991 and to 2.39 in 2000. The population will continue growing but at a slower rate. In the 1950s and 1960s it grew at 3%; this year it dropped to 1.44%. The lower birthrate is due to the wider use of contraceptives and the growing number of women entering the job market.      August 30, 2004   Associated Press

Harvesting the Roots of a New Revolution; Some Afghan Women Find Economic Freedom, Dietary Benefits in Vegetable Crops..   Women are cutting through traditions in the isolated homeland of Afghanistan's Hazara population. Confined to fieldwork and child-rearing they are relegated to the lowest rung of Afghan society. In some districts the female literacy rate has been zero, and more than 6% of pregnant women die during childbirth. The river valleys are blanketed with wheat and potato fields, but farmers grow no other crops. The daily diet consists of bread, potatoes and tea, and nearly one-third of Hazarajat's children suffer from stunted growth. But Sabera Sakhi, who runs a small social welfare program in the region's capital, is trying to promote the economic emancipation of women, the cultivation of crops no one has grown here before, and the benefits of vegetarian cuisine. She rented three acres of farmland, otained seeds and finance from a New Zealand military unit that operates a provincial development outpost and to gain local support, approached village elders and said she wanted to help women whose husbands had been killed or disabled when Taliban forces burned houses and destroyed fields. She offered each of 20 participants $50 a month to tend plots of vegetables. Within months, the women went from being the neediest members of their community to being among the top income earners. They developed farming skills unknown to local men, learned how to prepare and cook vegetables for their children, and discovered their own stamina improving in the process. The changes were suspect. At first people laughed when they saw them growing things that were not traditional and said it was shameful to register with a foreign charity. The women were gradually convinced that vegetables were beneficial to their health. Next, Sakhi plans to open a women's vegetable stall market. In Kabul, and other urban districts, educated Hazara women are as active as men in civic and political affairs. Even in the highlands, Hazara families are eager to have their daughters educated, and U.N. officials said that since the collapse of Taliban rule aid agencies have scrambled to build schools and attract qualified female teachers. But conservative custom has conspired to keep older girls from higher education. A new university built by the U.S. opened in Bamian, but of 165 initial students, only six were women, because few girls had completed high school. Of 528,000 voters who registered in the region, more than half -- 280,000 -- were women, whereas in some southern, Pashtun areas, as little as 20% were women. In interviews many Hazara farm women said they had obtained their identification cards as their elders urged, but few understood that they would be voting for a new president, and some did not know that Hamid Karzai is the president of Afghanistan. Sakhi has been trying to expose Hazara women to human rights, civic association and constitutional law. She offered a free class in legal and civic issues for 50 women There is no lack of interest, but almost no facilities. 1,600 women registered for literacy classes but there were no books. Women are not allowed to choose their husbands, and there is no place for them to turn when they have problems in their marriages. Experts predict it will take years before Hazara women can make up for the poverty and violent predations that have kept Hazarajat in isolation. But there are already signs that the vegetable program is changing community attitudes toward women, agriculture and eating habits. The salaries, and the toil of tending delicate crops have earned the participants respect among village men, a few of whom acknowledged they had come to like eating the new fangled vegetables.      August 22, 2004   Washington Post

Turkmenistan: Reproductive Health Shows Signs of Improvement.   Reproductive health services are improving in Turkmenistan, with more women utilising modern contraception as the Turkmen government in 1998 established reproductive health {RH} units. Doctors choose the best contraception for the patient. Formerly intrauterine devices (IUDs) called 'spirals' were the most common method used. UNFPA provides contraceptives while conducting training of medical personnel. Young people want to live for themselves for a while and then have children. Birth intervals are longer and the fertility rate among older women is going down. Maternal mortality decreased between 1994 and 2002 by 2.8 times. There were 98.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1994, while in 2002 that figure stood at 36. Maternal deaths were mainly caused by haemorrhage and toxaemia, while infections, abortions and extra-genital pathologies were other causes. More than 99% of married women know about contraceptives and where they can be obtained. More than 60% of married women are using modern contraception methods. But the level of knowledge of secondary school and university students about STDs, family planning and contraception was very low. Among students with Turkmen as the language of instruction it was even lower. Another official said that condoms were not available at government-run pharmacies but only available at commercial shops where they are exposed to direct sunlight.      August 11, 2004   IRIN News (UN)

Iran's Population Growth Rate Falls to 1.5 Percent.   Iran has decreased its rate of population growth to 1.5% and has also controlled fertility rate and decreased the death rate of mothers and infants to 37 in every 1,000. The UNFPA provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries at their request and its functions are to develop needs in population and family planning, promote awareness of population problems and strategies to deal with them. HIV has not been studied at widespread level, and the families should be enough trained on sexual relations. The UNFPA will cooperate with Iran in the next UNFPA also considers women training as its major aim for advancing the goals of the Fund.      August 02, 2004   Payvand's Iran News

Iran: Fall in Population Growth Could Bring Economic Benefits .   Iran's population growth has declined by more than half over the past 10 years and infant mortality rates are low, at 28 per 1,000 births. Fertility rates are at replacement levels, contraceptive usage has risen to 74% and life expectancy is up to 70 years for both sexes. The improvements should not overshadow the challenges of promoting gender equality, boosting reproductive health care and addresing the needs of 13-24 year-olds, who account for a third of the population. Their needs for jobs, housing, health care and social services will shape the development outlook of Iran. If their needs are met and the replacement level fertility rates persist, they will form an invigorating labour force with fewer dependents to support, that will result in productivity savings and investments which will turn this generation into a population bonus. Such a country generates surplus wealth, allowing for greater savings which boost the economy. Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia are examples. Iran's unemployment rate is a cause for concern at 12% and housing is a major issue in cities. Rural to urban migration has created urban sprawls with rocketing house prices. Iran's conservative Islamic regime makes discussing teenage sex education difficult but Iran has made headway in the field of population stabilization. They are on the right track and Iran can provide a role model for other developing countries especially Muslim ones, as Iranian women and men have better access to reproductive health and family planning services. The attainment of reproductive rights and the empowerment couples to decide freely on the number of children they want, will lead to population stabilization and poverty alleviation.      July 12, 2004   IRIN News (UN)

Nepal's Population Reaches 23.8 Million .   With a growth rate of 2.25%, Nepal's population in 2004 has reached 23.8 million and is one of the highest among the developing countries. The fertility rate has decreased to 4.1% from 5.1%. Ramhari Aryal, head of the Population Directorate at the Nepali Ministry of Population and Environment, said: "There have been remarkable achievements in social awareness, child and infant mortality rate, literacy rate and use of contraceptives in Nepal." Average life span of men has increased to 60.1 from 55.9, and women to 60.7 from 53.4. The child mortality rate has decreased in the past 10 years. The growth in the use of contraceptives has risen from 25.1% to 39.3%, but there is still much room for improvement in population management.      July 06, 2004   Xinhua General News Service

Foreign Donors Worried About Violence, Crime, Corruption in Bangladesh .   Foreign donors expressed concern at the violence, crime, corruption and lack of justice in Bangladesh and warned that the problems threatened economic and social development. Hard-won economic gains and human development successes are imperiled. The economy is expected to see grow thanks to healthy harvests and a recovery in exports. Economic growth is anticipated to increase to 5.5% for the year. Bangladesh, a nation of 140 million, has become less dependent on foreign aid over the past decade. Less than 50% of the country's development programs are financed by aid. More girls are attending school, more jobs for women, and there is a reduction in infant mortality and the rate of population growth. However a large part of the population still lives in poverty.      May 08, 2004   Associated Press

UN Praises Mexico Family Planning Progress.   The UN praised Mexico for progress in the last decade in family planning. Mexico was one of the success stories in implementing programs. The objectives include: increasing access to education, gender equality and reduction in infant, child and maternal mortality rates. Women are making their own choices about family size. Increased life expectancy and advances in the voluntary use of contraceptives were still not enough. Mexico's population would be around 170 million people, instead of 100 million, if not for family planning campaigns launched 30 years ago. The country had 21.92 births per 1 000 people in 2003, compared to 17.67 per 1 000 people in Brazil. The UN estimate the average number of children for Mexican women is now 2 instead of 6 in the 1970's.   Some of the births are exported by migration to the U.S. These are not counted in determining the fertility rate.   May 04, 2004   Reuters

China Joins Countries with Low Birth Rate.   China has joined the countries with a low birth rate. China's population reached 1.29 billion in 2003, 21% of the world population and China has been working to curb the rise of population. Its policy of controlling population and improving quality of life has made outstanding achievements. Family planning plays an important role in promoting economy, speeding up social progress and enhancing people's living standards. It gives China an overall basis for sustainable development. This policy has contributed to ease rapid population rise worldwide and its environmental and ecological fallout. The world population has doubled since 1960s. In 2003, it reached 63 billion, 95% from developing countries.      April 29, 2004  

A Chinese Revolution.   Authorities in Shanghai announced that divorced couples who remarry can have a second child. In China, unless both husband and wife are from rural areas or one of several ethnic minorities, a woman must use an intra-uterine device after her first child, and can be sterilised after her second. But Deqing is one of 32 pilot counties that has abandoned birth quotas and targets. More than �8 million from a UNFPA programme has been poured into upgrading family planning clinics and giving more freedom of choice when selecting contraceptive methods, including condoms, pills and injectibles, emphasising quality care and meeting the needs of clients. It's planned to extend the programme across a third of the country. Condom use is soaring, and in Deqing, 10% of couples use condoms, and in the cities it exceeds 20% per cent. All of Shanghai's municipal buildings sport condom dispensers and anyone is free to take as many as they need. Neighbourhood clinics include counselling rooms, private examination rooms and a library. The commission is counting on keeping fertility rates down by providing a wider choice and better counselling. Research suggests that the preference for boys is no longer as pronounced. In Shanghai, couples prefer girls because they are easier to raise than boys. The sex ratio in Shanghai is 105 boys to every 100 girls, the normal international average. In the 32 counties where UNFPA's programme is implemented, the abortion rate has dropped 30%. Yuzhong county, has an 85% decline in abortions. The sterilisation rate for is 30% as in the US. Lower population growth remain a top priority for the Chinese Government. This initiative shows that you can have voluntary family planning that works.      April 15, 2004   Push Journal

The Dawn of Modern Korea: 3-3-35: Once Most Desirable Figure.   In the 1960s many newly independent countries believed their large and growing population was a major asset � and resisted family planning. Korea is a small country and had no room for more people. In 1961 the Korean Family Planning Association was founded and in the 1960s and 1970s was producing leaflets and posters, sponsoring birth control and educating couples about contraception. Government agencies distributed condoms and paid money to people who chose to be sterilized. In 1966 it launched its �3-3-35� campaign with the message: "Bear 3 children with 3 years between each child, and stop at 35!" In the 1960s the average Korean woman gave birth to six children, and to reduce that number to three was an ambitious task. By 1970 the number dropped to four. Posters of the 1970s stated: "It doesn�t matter whether you�ve a son or daughter: have two kids and bring them up well!" (Aimed at shattering the preference for sons). By the 1980s it became clear that it was an affluent developed country. The number of children continued to decrease and eventually reached its current level of 1.42 births per woman. By comparison: in the U.S. the number is 2.1. Within four decades Korea has transformed itself to a country with a very low birth rate.      April 14, 2004   Push Journal

Bhutanese Queen Distributes Condoms in Anti-aids Drive.   Queen Ashi Wangchuck, the UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in Bhutan, visited Gom Kora in Trashiyangtse to highlight the risks of HIV/AIDS, early marriage, unwanted pregnancies and substance abuse. She distributed audiocassettes with messages on HIV/AIDS, pamphlets on reproductive health, and condoms to thousands of people. Her tour will take her to some of the remote villages in Mongar, Trashigang and Trashi Yangtse. In her capacity as the UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in Bhutan she will carry out awareness campaign on population planning and reproductive health. Issues like HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and health and hygiene will also be covered during the tour.      March 31, 2004   BBC

Smaller Families Spur Higher Hopes in South America.   Birth rates in developing countries have declined over the last several decades, thanks to economic growth, urbanization, medical improvements, and expanding educational opportunities. In Bolivia in 1970 mothers had an average of 6.5 children, last year it was 3.9. Bolivia's government has taken an active role, often bucking opponents of social change. In 1995 the government announced that family planning would be mandatory for all hospitals and clinics. Hospitals would have to offer sterilization surgery, and clinics would be required to stock IUDs and condoms. To secure industrial jobs, parents increasingly send children, including girls, to school which resulted in more women entering the work force. Educated women want educated children.      January 08, 2004   Boston Globe

China's Quiet Revolution in Reproductive Health.   The Population and Family Planning Commission, working with the Ministry of Health and the China Family Planning Association, has abandoned quotas and targets for family planning. Services in family planning clinics and health care centres have been upgraded. Women and men have freedom of choice when selecting contraceptives. There has been the introduction of training for health care providers, modern diagnostic equipment and supplies and better counselling. The impact can be seen by the increases in condom use. In Deqing, 10% of families use condoms; in large cities over 20%, because of awareness of STIs and HIV/AIDS. Catholics for a Free Choice, a group of UK Parliamentarians and an assessment team from the State Department, found no evidence that UNFPA�s funds was used to provide coercive abortions and sterilisations. The US administration decreed that China had violated the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which bars agencies from receiving US funds if it participates in coercive sterilisation or abortion. This cost $34 million in US appropriations in 2002 and 2003. Funds for UNFPA were provided by European donors. In the counties where UNFPA's program is implemented, the abortion rate has dropped by 30%, in Yuzhong county, by 85%.      January 07, 2004   United Nations Population Fund

Pakistan: 'Country Passing Thru Demographic Transition'.   Pakistan is passing through a demographic transition as the decline in fertility shortens the period over which the per capita income doubles. This transition needs employment growth and human resource development as in some East Asian countries. Pakistan has seen a sharp decline in fertility since the mid nineties. Literacy and education have progressed despite rapid population growth. Provincial lobbies have tried to influence the census count to gain more seats in the legislatures and more jobs in the federal government. It was proposed that the 1998 census count be used to determine provincial shares for the next 30 years. Studies found the census better than the previous count because of army supervision.      December 27, 2003   Dawn (Pakistan)

Viet Nam: Population Fight Not Over Yet.   Viet Nam has reduced its population growth and its baby boom generation is approaching the peak of its child-bearing years. If the country keeps following the voluntary two-child policy the population will reach 100 million people by 2025, 15 years later than past estimates. Slow population growth translates into savings in health, education and social services. The country has managed to bring the birth rate down from 3.8 children in 1989 to 2.28 children in 2003. Problems remain in rural and mountainous areas, and in improving skills and education. The physical, mental and intellectual state of the Vietnamese people was not sufficient to service the drive towards modernisation. Viet Nam ranked 109 among 175 countries in the UN human development index last year. The country has more than 84% of people over 15 who do not hold any technical qualifications, 3.8% with vocational secondary education and 4.2% with college education. 30% of children aged under five are malnourished.      December 26, 2003   Vietnam News Agency

Malaysia Reudces Maternal Deaths   Over half-a-million women die each year from pregnancy and childbirth. For each death, 20 to 30 more suffer illness and disability which may last a lifetime. Malaysia plans on sharing its strategy in reducing maternal deaths to 0.3 in 2000. Hospitals were upgraded, midwives and nurses trained to recognise complications and refer patients to the health centres. They were given transportation, communication facilities, skills training, supervision and equipment. Family planning was integrated into rural health services. Meeting the need for contraception services could reduce maternal mortality by 20%.   October 21, 2003   Bernama (Malaysia)

Bangladesh to Promote Permanent Methods for Birth Control.   Bangladesh needs permanent, long term birth control programs. The total fertility rate (TFR) was brought down to 3.3 in 1996 from 6.3 in 1976. The current 140 million population doubled from 75 millions in 1971 and, can be kept around 220 million by 2065 only if the TFR is brought down to 2.2 by 2010. Media support is required to encourage people to take sterilization instead of the temporary methods. The government has taken steps to popularize sterilization and 200,000 people have been targeted for 2003 and the rate of the contraceptive users would be raised to 60% from the existing 54%. Bangladesh bought 219 million condoms, 112 million pills, 10 million injections and 0.2 million intrauterine devices last year. Family planning was launched in 1962, but it began to take momentum in the late seventies.      August 25, 2003   Xinhua General News Service

Chinese Women Healthier, More Educated, but Poverty Still Biggest Challenge.   Women in China comprise 44% of the students in colleges and universities, totaling 3.97 million - an increase of 2.67 million from five years ago. The average life expectancy is 73.6 years, 3.8 years more than that of men and the turnout of women in local elections has increased to 73.4%. The marriage law of 2001 gives victims protection and punishes abusers. In divorce cases, victims of abuse can sue for damages. Poverty remains the biggest barrier especially in rural areas and work needs to be done for women's political participation, employment and protection of female workers' rights. Sexual harassment has been a problem because the laws require plaintiffs to produce direct evidence. It is important for employers to provide education to prevent such violations.      August 14, 2003   Associated Press

Tunisian Birth Rate Falls, Per Capita Income Rises With Successful Family Planning Programs.   Since the 1960s, the fertility rate in Tunisia has fallen from 7.2 children per woman to 2.08. Family planning programs began after the end of the French rule, including birth control, outlawing polygamy, raising the legal marriage age, limiting subsidies to families for only the first four children and conducting sex education classes among men, women and children. The government spends 18% of its $21 billion GDP on social programs, including $10 million on family planning and birth control education. In addition, Tunisia legalized abortion in 1966. The birth rate decline has resulted in economic benefits. The per capita income has risen from $1,430 in 1993 to $2,070. However in other Muslim nations there are social and religious hurdles to overcome to get where Tunisia is today.      August 14, 2003   Wall Street Journal

Brazil to Distribute Millions of Condoms to High School Students.   As many as 3.4 million condoms will be distributed to high school students in 5 cities to fight the high number of teen pregnancies and AIDS. 105,000 students who are sexually active will be provided 8 condoms each a month. By 2006, it is hoped 2.6 million teens will be served by the program. Teenagers gave birth to 210,946 babies and underwent 219,834 abortions from 1999 to April 2003. Brazil already provides a cocktail of expensive anti-AIDS drugs to anybody who needs them. Brazilians are able to talk openly about sex. Though Brazil is the country with largest number of Catholics in the world, condom use is fairly well accepted by the general population.   August 14, 2003   Associated Press

Pacific Northwest Birthrates and Teen Births Hit All-time Lows.   In the Pacific Northwest, teen birthrates are at an all-time low and natural increase is at the lowest rate since the 1930s - says a report from the Northwest Environment Watch. The province of British Columbia in Canada shows the lowest, followed by the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. The success is attributed to a trend toward delayed childbirth and a scarcity of women in peak childbearing ages. Slowed migration has also cause the population growth rate to drop. About 38% of births in the Northwest states result from unintended pregnancies. Recommended are efforts to reduce child poverty and prevent sexual abuse (proven precursors to teen births), make contraceptive services more available and affordable, and expand access to emergency contraception. Population growth from natural increase is one among seven critical indicators of regional livability that will be included in Northwest Environment Watch's annual progress report.   August 07, 2003   Northwestwatch.org

Vietnam: Cranes, Rice and People.   CRANES IN DECLINE. The number of Sarus Cranes coming to Viet Nam has fallen to 100 due to canals that prevents the growth of the Chinese water chestnut upon which the cranes feed. Other problems include the encroachment of mimosa trees, along with illegal firewood collection. The marshlands used to total about 2,500 acres are now down to 500 acres. The Sarus crane is the world's tallest flying bird and 60% of the world's population of the eastern sub-species lives in the Tram Chim National Park part of the year. Another 8,000 to 10,000 Sarus crane live in India, and another subspecies, with a population of about 5,000 birds, is found in Australia. __ RICE PRODUCTION IN THE PLAIN OF REEDS. The Tram Chim National Park is the last wild remnant of the Plain of Reeds, once an enormous wetland eco-system in one of the poorest areas of Vietnam. Prior to 1985, it was farmed in floating paddy rice but this system has been replaced by modern hybrids and methods which produce. Prior to 1980 Vietnam imported rice, today Vietnam is the world's third largest rice exporter. Marginal rice lands are being converted into fish ponds and fruit orchards, a new export business. 80% of Vietnam's 80 million people live in rural areas and 9 out of 10 remain poor. __ FAMILY PLANNING IN VIETNAM. Vietnam's population growth rate is rapid due to past high fertility, but birth rates are now within striking distance of replacement. Reforms are credited with the dramatic improvements seen in Vietnam's economy over the last 15 years and part of the reform has been to embrace a "One or Two Child" norm. Financial incentives are offered for sterilizations and those who have larger families are required to pay the health and education costs of the third child. All acts of preventing or forcing the implementation of family planning are prohibited. The most common method of contraception is the IUD, because officials do not think the weak health care distribution system can provide other reliable and affordable contraception. Contraception shortages remain a problem, as does nonuse by a large number of youth migrating to the cities. Vietnam has one of the highest abortion rate of any country in the developing world.      August 2003   Patrick Burns

Brazil's Success Story.   Brazil has a low fertility rate (TFR = 2.1 or less as of 2003) and that this low fertility was achieved remarkably quickly. In 1989, the TFR of Brazil was 3.4 (about the current average in the less developed world today, excluding China). One of the secrets to Brazil's rapid fertility decline was that the owner of a large TV Brazilian station (TV-Globo) came to believe that encouraging small families was key to Brazil's future economic development. TV-Globo ran ads "normalizing" small families, and even worked family planning messages into their popular soap operas. The education worked! Today, with energy self-sufficiency a near-reality and family planning programs firmly in place, Brazil's chief complaint is that the U.S. (as well as Europe) continues to have strong agricultural protectionist policies that keep out their products (such as oranges).   July 2003   Patrick Burns

Good News In Malawi.   The average Malawi woman has six children, down from 7.4 in 1997, demonstrating a rapid rate of fertility decline. The country with highest fertility is Niger, with 8 children per woman and a total population of 11 million. Kenya which once had a rate of 8.1 has fallen to 4.3 thanks to increased use of modern contraception and in 2002 had a population of 30 million. The leading donor to Kenya's family planning is the U.S.      April 18, 2003  

Mixed Messages.   The Kaiser Family Foundation reported more sex on TV, even during the family hours. But more shows mentioned safe sex; including the risks and responsibilities. These are shows where sex talk is ubiquitous and occasionally laced with angst, or maybe a condom joke. Teen pregnancy rates are at their lowest since the 1970s. Sexual activity by teens is down and contraceptive use is up. The number of college students who say it's "all right to have sex if two people have known each other for a long time" has plummeted to one-third. Mr. Bush increases money for very few programs, but he doubles funding for abstinence-only education. There is no study showing that this type of sex education is effective. There is evidence that a different kind of program works - such as Teen Outreach Program or Pathways/Senderos in Connecticut, which emphasize abstinence before marriage but provide accurate information about contraceptives and have proven success rates. These are the kinds of programs that make policymakers uncomfortable, because much like the television networks, they send mixed messages.      February 10, 2003   Washington Post

Population Control Helps Poverty Reduction in Asia-pacific.   Largely due to population control, poverty has been reduced in most of the Asia-Pacific region. According to a study of 18 Asian countries, their poverty rate fell from 65% in 1960 to 17% in 2000 with China showing the greatest reduction. The target of halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015 is likely to be reached in the Asia-Pacific region with effective birth control. The link between population and poverty is obvious at both the macro and the micro levels for most countries in the region.      December 17, 2002   Xinhua General News Service

China Signs Population Agreements with Thailand, Indonesia.   China has signed bilateral population agreements with Thailand and Indonesia, aimed at strengthening cooperation in the fields of reproductive healthcare and family planning and efforts in addressing population issues. The agreements include bilateral exchange of government officials and experience, organizing training courses for officials and experts, conducting joint research and marketing for reproductive healthcare products and cooperation in addressing HIV/AIDS. China will adopt a people- centered approach andd will promote women's status and living standards of all Chinese.      December 16, 2002   Xinhua General News Service

Pakistan to Reduce Population Growth Rate�.   The Pakistani government plans to reduce the country's population growth rate from 2.1 percent to 1.9 percent by 2002, according to Secretary of the Ministry of Population Welfare Khawaja Ijaz Sarwar. He said that, to ensure the country's progress and development population growth should be managed by strengthening strengthen the existing health infrastructure. The United Nations Funds for Population Affairs (UNFPA) is helping with the funding. 12,000 village-based workers are working and another 45,000 are coming from the Ministry of Health. By 2003, the total number of health workers would reach 100,000. In a separate article, Pakistan's military-led government on Friday inaugurated a national commission for protecting the interests of women and raising their status in the male-dominated society. The examination of violence against women was recommended as a first task. A 21-member Commission on the Status of Women, made up of female scholars from the country's four provinces as well as senior officials was inaugurated, said Minister for Women's Development, Attiya Inayatullah. She said priority attention should be paid to education and reproductive health care, including access to family planning. Minister for Social Welfare and Special Education, Zubaida Jalal, said the commission "manifests the government's commitment to uplift women and bring them into the mainstream."   September 01, 2000   World News

Success in Kenya .   a Kenyan 'guiding Light,' with Moral Lessons . . . "Ushikwapo Shikamana" is a soap opera in Kenya aimed at getting people to talk more openly about social issues in Kenya, such as family planning, AIDS, drug abuse, female genital mutilation, and forced marriage. It focuses on social issues like AIDS, drugs, and family planning. It's title means "If assisted, assist yourself." Population Communications International, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in New York, has sponsored the show since 1998 here in Kenya and has used the soap opera medium in Brazil, Mexico, India, and just this summer in China. In countries like Kenya, contraception and other sensitive subjects, like whether girls have the right to be educated, can often be best tackled through fictional drama. Once they have seen the show, women are more likely to discusss touchy topics with their children and husbands. The soap's action takes place in three settings: Langoni, the prototypical rural village; Kanyageni, an urban slum; and posh Ulimboni. In Langoni, men control the women and girls, with female circumcision, early marriage, and lots of children the norm. Kanyageni faces problems of crime, drug abuse, prostitution, and poor housing. The characters all have connections back to Langoni.   August 21, 2000   Christian Science Monitor

India - Himachal .   The fertility rate in Himachal has declined to 2.14 in 1998 from 2.97 in 1992 and the growth rate is expected to reach zero by 2015. The region has large Gujjar population which was basically a nomadic tribe with a migratory lifestyle. The state had enacted a law which debars candidates having more than two children from contesting Panchayati Raj institution elections. The state had also introduced incentives for panchayats which recorded the lowest birthrate in the form of a cash award of Rs one lakh for local development work annually. Chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said that female education should become the focus of population control efforts and added that Himachal had the unique distinction of making education for girls free till the university level. The mean marriage age for girls was 20.5 years in Himachal and the sex ratio had increased to 1019 in 1999 as compared to 976 in 1991. The state is spending Rs 140 crores in the health sector. "There are 3100 health institutions in the state providing family planning services, but the difficult topography, inhospitable terrain and want of communication facilities were affecting accessibility to the services," Dhumal said.   July 27, 2000   Times of India /Population Connection

India, in General .   For years, India's family planning program has focused primarily on sterilization and on the number of sterilizations performed. Until recently, there has been little incentive to promote temporary contraceptive methods such as pills and condoms. Limited information and distribution campaigns for these methods resulted mainly in their discontinued use. This also helps explain the low impact of temporary methods on fertility in India. Because of the emphasis on sterilization, family planning is generally perceived as a means of stopping childbearing rather than as a means of spacing births. In recent years, however, the Indian government has increased efforts to promote temporary methods of contraception as well as improving their distribution through a variety of sources. But to promote these methods properly, issues regarding preconceived notions about contraception have to be identified and addressed. It has been found that women regularly exposed to electronic mass media are less likely to report method problems or opposition to family planning. This suggests the importance of education and motivation activities.   2000   International Institute for Population Sciences

Empowering Women in Nepal .   USAID's program is helping to unleash the vast human resource potential in Nepali women. Each year over 100,000 women are taught to read, write, and count, of which nearly 50,000 also learn about their legal rights and how to advocate for social change in their communities. Many of these same women are participating in the more than 1,600 savings and credit groups that have been formed with USAID's assistance; nearly 15,000 of them have invested in small businesses that are providing increased household income.   2000  

Success in Thailand .   U.S. population assistance to Thailand, which ended in 1990 when the Thai government assumed primary responsibility for financing the family planning program, was instrumental in helping couples reduce their average family size to 2.1 children per woman-about one-third its 1960 level.   2000  

Sri Lanka .   In Sri Lanka, 90% of whose women are literate, population growth is only 0.65% a year   2000  

Ten Countries Making the Most Progress in Access to Contraception, 1982 to 1994 .   Bolivia, Iran, Mongolia and Oman have made major policy changes endorsing family planning and initiating national programs where none previously existed. Botswana and Kenya were among the first African countries to initiate family planning programs and have been unwavering in their commitment. Improvements in access in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela reflect the increased availability of contraception from private and public sources   2000  

Uganda .   An organization called Pathfinder has been successful in bringing down the fertility rate in the country to 6.9, a substantial decline from the 1989 rate of 7.3. The use of modern contraceptives has increased from 2.5% in 1989 to 7.8% in 1995 and ranges from 35% of women around Kampala to a rural average of 5%. Contraceptive prevalence has tripled over the past five years. Pathfinder enables women to receive contraceptive services in their own homes from trained providers who live nearby. Much remains to be done, however, as the current unmet need for family planning is estimated at 29%. Infant and child mortality rates are high and maternal mortality is estimated to account for 17% of all deaths among women aged 15-49. Life expectancy may only be 37 due to AIDS and other SIDs. In 1986, the Busoga Diocese, Church of Uganda, founded the Family Life Education Program (FLEP), the first community-based family planning project in rural Uganda. As the demand for family planning and reproductive health services in this country has grown, FLEP has become an organizational model, providing an excellent example of how influential a small NGO can be in rural settings. In 1980, the Busoga Bishop launched the Multi-Sectoral Rural Development Project (MSRDP), aimed at improving the lives of those in the diocese's rural communities with development projects that addressed health, education, agriculture, and sanitation together. Many rural people associated contraception with prostitution, and many believed that the joy of having a lot of children was a good substitute for financial wealth. Yet by 1993, FLEP had become so successful that the Church granted it the status of an independent NGO, and in 1997 it was officially registered with the Ugandan government. FLEP employs information, education, and communication (IEC) specialists to train local drama groups as well as village health workers to write and produce songs and dramas that make family planning information more accessible to local audiences.   2000   Pathfinder

Morocco: Moudawana Improving Women's Situation Further.   Morocco is moving to lifting of some of the reservations towards the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Morocco has made the promotion of women's condition an objective and an inter-ministerial commission had been created in 2000 to carry through the government's strategy to the equality between men and women. The Moroccan government has also adopted a gender-oriented approach, particularly in the fields of education and health, the objective being to integrate this process in the preparation of annual state budgets.      2000   Morocco Time

Mexico: Family Planning Gains .   The local Mexican institutions and U.S.-based nongovernmental agencies have partnered to create success stories in Mexico's family planning. The birth rate has gone from 7.2 children, in 1965, to 2.5 in 1999. Credit can be given Mexican agencies like the National Population Council and the nonprofit Mexican Foundation for Family Planning, or Mexfam, an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Media campaigns urge delay of marriage and pregnancy and emphasize the advantages of spacing the births of one's children. Vasectomy or tubal ligation are freely available. 70% of women of childbearing age have access to contraception. To avoid conflict with the Catholic Church, media ads list the advantages of a small family without direct mention of contraceptives. Sex education has even come to Mexico's public elementary schools. Much of the funding comes from U.S. government agencies, but the expiration of a bilateral agreement this year cut off the flow because a few members of Congress vehemently oppose not just abortion but even certain contraception methods. Denying help to agencies that provide proven family planning information and assistance is a sure way to curb progress.   December 27, 1999   Los Angeles Times

Lebanon .   "The Arab region began to sit up and take notice of population issues" following the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, which educated countries about depleting natural resources and other negative effects of worldwide population growth. In Lebanon, family planning lessons have become part of school curricula, reproductive health guidelines have been established, and contraceptives have been made available at various health centers in the country.   November 19, 1999   Maha Al-Azar, Beirut Daily Star

China's New Story .   In the case of China you have the one-child policy. We have a program now in 32 [Chinese] counties where there are no targets and no quotas. The population has been informed that they can have as many children as they want. The outcome is not that women or couples have unlimited numbers of children. If you visit some of these villages, they say, "Why would we have more than two children?" Some only wanted to have one child. In the counties that we have been working in, they have been quite unconcerned whether it's a boy or a girl because they can have as many children as they want.

11 million Chinese tune in to watch "Ordinary People," the No. 1 soap in the nation and No. 3 show overall. Can a young woman from a small town ever find happiness, love, success - and, of course, a small family - in the big China? "Instead of imposing government policies, we are trying to change attitudes." says Chen Sheng Li of The State Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China. The soap opera-tion of PCI and other groups has become a potent and popular tool of family planning in many diverse countries.   November 11, 1999   Interview with Nafis Sadik./Boston Globe

South Korea .   Per Capita income: $6251. Cropland per person: 0.05 hectares. Infant mortality rate 6 per 1000. 100% enrollment in secondary school, male and female. To end the poverty and the baby boom that followed the 1950-53 Korean War, a family planning program in 1961 was instituted that was aimed at persuading Koreans to "stop at two" children. Birth-control workers were given regional quotas for births and sterilizations. Married people with children were urged to volunteer for sterilization. Many thousands did. Contraceptives were distributed. The birthrate dropped dramatically from 4.51 per woman in the 1970s to 1.56 in 1997.   November 06, 1999   Los Angeles Times

Malawi .   Malawi abolished family planning services in the early 1960s because messages of reproductive health were construed as challenging firmly-held cultural beliefs which say having many children is a step to riches. In 1982, however, authorities were persuaded to consider restarting family planning services but now under the guise of Child Spacing later renamed Maternal Child Health. It was introduced in government hospitals in 1992 when contraceptive prevalence was 1%. The prevalence gradually improved to 7% in 1994. Malawi still has a long way to go because of misconceptions and myths. Contraceptive methods are not targeting young people between 15-25 years, estimated to constitute 47 percent of the country's population. 36% are willing to delay pregnancies by 2-3 years but by not using family planning methods.   November 04, 1999   All Africa News Agency

German Organization Links Health and Family Planning in Bangladesh .   Health workers help with simple illnesses, send difficult cases to a doctor, and advise mothers on nutrition and birth control. GTZ also tries to make the people help themselves, resulting in the digging of a fish pond, credit for cattle breeding and building simple but hygenic toilets. These things contribute to a decline in population growth, says Helga Piechulek of the German Development Cooperation (GTZ). Seventy per cent of the infants who die in poor countries fall prey to gastroenteritis, pneumonia, malaria or malnutrition. Maternity deaths are also high if women become pregnant at 15 and produce one child every year. When the infant mortality rate falls, they need not fear losing a child any more. Family planning is no longer taboo. The average children per woman has dropped from 7 children to three in 20 years. The growth rate has dropped from 2.7% in 1980 to 1.6%. Although population growth rates usually drop from increase prosperity, Bangladesh has remained extremely poor.   November 01, 1999   Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Iran .   An unlikely model for family planning. The United Nations considers Iran a model for Muslim nations worldwide. Though it is commonly believed in many Islamic societies that large families are good, Iran has embraced family planning. Its mullahs, who are often fundamentalist, have been very flexible, progressive, and pragmatic on family planning. 20 years ago babies were sought to bolster the ranks of "soldiers for Islam", but from 1976 to 1986 the population jumped 33 million to nearly 50 million. After the Islamic revolution, the economy fell, and the country faced serious challenges in supporting this number of people. Job shortages were acute. The Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini permitted debate on the subject of birth control. In the Koran the prophet says: "The most grueling trial is to have plenty of children with no adequate means." Women still must wear the baggy chador and head scarf in public, and abortion is forbidden - but every form of contraception is encouraged and has religious sanction. Iran's population growth rate has halved to less than 1.47% in a decade. Iran's family planning success is attributed to great religious support, political commitment, and a good health infrastructure. Iran's education system is also cited as a reason - the literacy rate has increased from 47% in pre-revolution days to 85% today. Health centers remote areas are stocked with an array of free contraceptives and sterilization is free for men and women.

Iran has a very excellent adolescent reproductive sex education and service program. In a pilot study they educated all the parents in the community, and told the young people that all these parents were informed and they knew how to deal with these issues of sex and sex education. They could go to any parent; they didn't have to go to their [own] parents. And so parents become the health educators in that community.   October 14, 1999   population conference at Simmons College in Boston

India - Kerala.   Literate women in India's Kerala help hold population growth nearly flat A history of Christian missionary schooling for all castes, and a progressivist communist government that since 1957 has pushed land reform and education have helped in the reduction, but mostly a self-conscious awareness of the value and role of women, and their rights within the family - even in rural areas, has helped birth rates lower. "If you have too many kids, you can't spend enough time educating them," says a young woman. In Kerala, the birth rate is about 2.4. ��� 85% of village girls can read and write, the highest rate in India. Compared this to Rajasthan village girls with a less than 10% literacy rate; village girls are often married at age 14, the birth rate is about six children per family. Kerala also has the lowest rates of female infanticide in India, and today women here outnumber men by a factor of roughly 10 to 7. Kerala women have provided many firsts': the first woman Indian Supreme Court justice, the first female head of the stock market, the first state chief engineer, the first surgeon general, the first female international literary figure (Arundhati Roy). In commercial centers like New Delhi and Bombay, moreover, employers advertise for Kerala women - their skill levels and independence are highly valued. Last year a Kerala Muslim girl, for the first time, scored the highest of all students on the state high school exam.   October 12, 1999   Christian Scientist Monitor