STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2001: POPULATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) garnered broad coverage with the release of its annual report, State of World Population 2001 -- Footprints and Milestones: Population and Environmental Change. This comprehensive report explores the complex links between population trends, women’s role in society, poverty, pollution and wasteful resource consumption. On-line copies are available from http://www.unfpa.org

Press briefings were held in London, Tokyo, New York and Washington, DC. Additional events were held around the world in nearly 100 countries around the world including 17 town meetings around the United States.

Dr. Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, was quoted in The New York Times story on November 7 as saying the report shows that “poverty and rapid population growth are a deadly combination.” With half earth’s population living on $2 a day or less, “the message is clear,” she said. “While some of us practice wasteful consumption, others cannot consume enough to survive.”

The world’s richest nations have failed to donate promised cash for family planning in developing countries, a lack that could lead to an “unsustainable” world population of around 11 billion by 2050, according to the State of World Population. “Wealthy countries were failing to provide the $20 billion a year needed to meet these goals.” Alex Marshall of UNFPA told the London Associated Press in an interview reported November 7. “We are frustrated as to why the resources to implement these targets are not being met.” Some 185 countries agreed to UN targets of funding for contraceptive initiatives in developing nations at Cairo’s International Conference on Population Development in 1994, but only half the target sum has materialized. Germany, the United States and Japan - the richest nations – are among the smallest donors to the pot, Marshall said.

Overall, the coverage highlighted the impact global population and poverty is having on the environment and ways that improvements can be made through poverty alleviation and the empowerment of women. Many newspapers across the United States and throughout the world used either the AP or Reuters stories.

Others did original reporting. For example, The Dallas Fort-Worth Star-Telegram noted in its November 2 article that the UNFPA report noted that 508 million people were living in 31 “water-stressed” or “water-scarce” countries in 2000, and that the situation is expected to worsen in coming decades because of continued population growth in developing countries. The London Daily Telegraph said on its website story November 8 that the world will begin to run out of fresh water by 2050, and that earth’s resources are being used at a greater intensity than at any time in history. At current rates of deforestation, the last significant tropical rain forest could be gone within 50 years, according to The Irish Times story on November 8. Every year more than 12 million people die from causes inked to unsanitary conditions and unclean water, the article said.

C-SPAN covered of the Washington news conference featuring U.S. Representatives. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL), as well as Mark Van Putten, President of the National Wildlife Federation, P. Michael McKinley, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of State and report author Stan Bernstein of UNFPA. A video news release on the event was picked up by 34 stations, including network affiliates in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Louisiana, New York, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, California, Washington, Kansas, Oregon, South Dakota and Canadian TV stations in British Columbia.

U.S. Committee for UN Population Fund President Peter Purdy did a television tour from New York City that included live interviews on 15 local news shows in Missouri, Minnesota, Alabama, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, California, Colorado, Alabama, Ohio, Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Direct links for selected stories include:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/08/international/08POPU.html;                                                           http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/08/wdry08.xml&sSheet=/news/; http://web.star-telegram.com/content/fortworth/2001/11/02/opinions/fw010413-1102-XB015-2.htm; http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2001/1108/hom16.htm; http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-World-Population.html; http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2001/1108/edi2.htm; http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishdaily/ktmpost/2001/nov/nov08/index.htm; http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire.htm; http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011107/sc/un_population_dc_2.html; http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,317206-412,00.shtml; http://www.msnbc.com/news/653762.asp; http://allafrica.com/stories/200111070555.html; http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=547781&nav=4QcR5hae; http://web.star-telegram.com/content/fortworth/2001/11/16/opinions/fw010408-1116-XB013-2.htm; http://www.phillyburbs.com/couriertimes/news/news_archive/1111planned.htm

www.planetwire.org includes a webcast of the National Press Club event and a copy of the US video news release produced by DDB Issues and Advocacy.

POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT

Reuters and the Associated Press ran articles November 12 on the International Conference on Conservation and Management of Lakes meeting, held in Japan to prepare for the Third World Water Forum in 2003. “Up to 1 billion people worldwide depend on endangered lakes, but the number of lakes is shrinking rapidly as growing population over-taps them for irrigation and drinking water, or over-pollutes them with sewage and industrial runoff,” the Associated Press reported. “People in developing countries, who are more dependent on local surface water, are especially vulnerable.” Lakes on the watch list include: the Great Lakes of North America, Lake Victoria in Africa, and the Aral Sea between Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. http://news.excite.com/news/ap/011112/05/int-lakes-at-risk

Forests in Southeast Asia are disappearing at an alarming rate. The main cause of deforestation are forest fires and conversion of forest land for agriculture, such as in the slash-and-burn method used in Indonesia and the Philippines, Patrick Durst of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization was quoted as saying November 13, in the Associated Press. “The best solution to the deforestation problem is economic development.”

INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING FUNDING

Reuters Health reported November 8 that U.S. congressional negotiations on fiscal 2002 foreign aid spending were facing a fight over the so-called ”Mexico City Policy” that prohibits U.S. aid to international family planning organizations that “perform or promote” abortion, even using their own funds. A coalition of reproductive rights groups wrote to President Bush urging him to support the Senate’s plan to rescind the policy. “Now more than ever, US policy must strive to impress upon the world what we truly stand for,” said the letter.

On Nov. 16, The Washington Post reported the entire $15.3 billion foreign aid bill had stalled over funding levels for UNFPA, and that the Mexico City policy would remain in effect. Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), who chairs the House Appropriations foreign operation subcommittee, defended the $37.5 million allotted to the U.N. family planning operations from criticism it’s too high. The Washington Times reported November 19, that the disagreement on the foreign aid bill is holding up funds which covers everything from military aid to human rights policies to some issues related to the war on terrorism. Unlike past years when the debate was whether to contribute to the U.N. Population Fund at all, this year the White House, the House and the Senate each support funding between $25 million and $40 million. http://news.excite.com/news/r/011108/17/health-family; Washington Post; Washington Times

SAVING WOMEN’S LIVES

The relief agency CARE International announced that in November it would open a program to combat sexual and gender-based violence among refugees in Zambia, which is home to more than 260,000 refugees. “Refugee women do feel themselves to be particularly vulnerable. There are issues around disempowerment and a high level of domestic violence,” said CARE emergency coordinator Banda Petros, according to a November 6 article disseminated by Africa News.

“In the war of militant Islam against the infidel West, there is a chilling paradox. Nowhere, not on protesters’ banners, pre-suicide videos or posters of the most wanted, is there a woman’s face. These martyrs and radicals call themselves the purifiers of society and the saviors of the poor, yet everything the world has learned in the last decade about why some countries develop and others stay mired in poverty shows that women can make all the difference. “ Barbara Crossette, The New York Times, November 4. link

The U.N. Population relief efforts to aid Afghan women were highlighted at the fifth annual North Texas U.N. conference on Women, held at the University of Texas. The Dallas Morning News reported November 4, that Ms. Mbugua, a Kenyan citizen, spoke along with women’s rights advocate Alex Sanger. “Women in Afghanistan live in tents and have limited food and water and little access to medical care. Their living conditions breed hopelessness. They believe they have no choices,” she said. link

POPULATION AND HIV/AIDS

By 2050, only six countries will account for fully half the world’s population: China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Indonesia. This fact got Africa News’s attention in an article November 5 on the State of World Population report. The item also said world population would grow by 50 percent in that time, from 6.1 billion in mid-2001 to 9.3 billion by 2050. The article noted that the HIV/AIDS pandemic will cause 15.5 million more deaths in the next five years than would otherwise be expected in the 45 most affected countries, a higher figure than previously projected. It said causes and effects of the AIDS crisis are closely linked to poverty and other development issues such as exposure to other infections, gender inequality and insecure livelihood.

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution was among many outlets that reported November 14 on China’s first national conference on AIDS, 16 years after the country’s first case was reported. Health officials only recently acknowledged the scope of their country’s AIDS problem, but the Health Ministry hopes to cut the rate of new infections from the current 30 percent to 10 percent per year. The article said China needs to take urgent action or risk 10 million more infections by 2011. “Over the next two decades, what happens in China will determine the global burden of HIV/AIDS,” said Peter Piot, executive director of the UNAIDS program.

AIDS is devastating Zambia, according to a November 5 article in Africa News, as an estimated 70,000 new cases will occur this year. Some 800,000 children have lost one or both parents to the disease, a figure that is expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2005. Life expectancy has declined for both men and women to less than 40 years, “In Zambia, as in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, women are bearing the burnt of the epidemic,” the article said. “Worldwide, women and girls account for about 43 percent of those infected with HIV.” link

GLOBAL POPULATON

Ted Turner’s UN Foundation announced a series of grants totaling $35 million for projects in developing countries through the United Nations. The largest of the 15 grants, worth $6.6 million over 36 months, will go to the UN women’s fund (UNIFEM) to help enhance the role of women in conflict resolution and prevention and post-conflict peace building, according to articles by Agence France Presse November 7 and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution November 9. Roughly half the total was for women’s needs, including family planning and children’s health. link

Mexico’s National Institute of Health sponsored a regional conference on abortion that was covered November 13 by the Associated Press, in a story picked up by The New York Times and other outlets. Attended by health officials from 20 Latin American countries, the gathering’s aim was to establish a dialogue about the possible legalization of abortion. The article quoted a World Health Organization representative as saying about 4 million abortions are performed in Latin America each year, but 90 percent are done in secret by unlicensed doctors. Illegal abortions result in 6,000 deaths of women in Latin America each year, the story said. link

OPINIONS AND EDITORIALS

Women of the U.S. Senate turned their attention to the condition of Afghan women under Taliban rule, introducing the Afghan women and Children Relief Act of 2001 (SB 1573). According to a Houston Chronicle editorial November 6, the goals of the bill include reducing Afghan babies’ mortality rate, which is among the world’s highest; reducing childhood malnutrition; increasing access to health care for women and girls; and providing them with better and broader education.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee for foreign operations, says the foreign aid budget is not nearly enough, and columnist Judy Mann of The Washington Post agreed in a November 14 column. Leahy believes we should be spending at least five times as much on foreign aid as we are. “Let us act like a superpower,” the article said. “Let us lead the world in combating poverty, in supporting the development of democracy.” At the very time when sophisticated, well-financed foreign aid programs may be the best firewall against global terrorism, “the United States is the leading deadbeat dad,” link

“There are certain ties that bind –across oceans, across lines on maps. For women, it’s pregnancy and childbirth and sadly rape for some. So a United Nations effort to aid Afghan women has special resonance.” “The United Nations Population fund is launching the largest humanitarian operation in its history to save the lives of Afghan women facing reproductive health risks…” “Senior coordinator Pam DeLargy says “People who automatically think of refugee health needs in terms of providing vaccines or treating infections often forget the special needs of women. Fran Hathaway, Palm Beach Post. link

The Bush administration’s global gag rule on international family planning organizations has had a further “chilling effect” in that foreign health clinics are even refusing to treat women with complications from unsafe abortions, the Edmonton Sun (Canada) noted in a November 11 editorial, even thought that treatment is permitted under the U.S. rules. “It appears Canada doesn’t want to get involved in the messy debate over Bush’s ill-considered deadly anti-abortion policy,” the editorial said. “Canada will not increase its aids to fill in the gap, a government spokesman said. It may be that Canada, which spends $53 million a year on Third World family planning services, can’t spare any more money. But Ottawa should at least have the courage to criticize Bush’s ham-fisted attempt to force his anti-abortion zealotry on developing countries. Every year more than 70,000 women die from unsafe abortions.”

Dr. Steven Sinding, newly appointed Director-General Designate of International Planned Parenthood Federation, and Peter Kostmayer, President of Zero Population Growth wrote letters to the editor in response to The New York Times story November 4, Living in a World Without Women. Both letters point out that “Until all women of the world have free access to reproductive health care, including voluntary family planning, they will always experience oppression.” “The constraints in reproductive health care in the world’s poorest countries help one of freedom’s main enemies: ignorance.”

CORRECTION:

In our October 15-31 media analysis, we reported a Christian Science Monitor story that inaccurately gave the wrong name for the current president of Guatemala. President Alfonso Portillo signed into law the country’s first reproductive health policy, not Alvaro Arzu. Arzu is a former president who opposed such a policy.

Read more about global population and reproductive health issues in the online newsroom www.PLANetWIRE.org.

The above analysis was written by Ellen Mackenzie and Kathy Bonk at the Communications Consortium Media Center, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-8700.

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