| Population - General |
| Population Challenges - the Basics |
| [updated April 2006] |
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Achieving a world population in balance with its environmental resources is crucial to the future of our planet and the welfare of its people. Population growth is a complex issue that directly or indirectly impacts all aspects of our lives and the conditions under which we live----from the environment and global stability to women's health and empowerment. |
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| Environment |
| Population and Climate Change |
| [updated June 2007] |
Climate change is perhaps the most crucial environmental challenge of this century. Eleven of the world’s 12 highest annual global temperatures on record have occurred since 1995, leading many of the world’s top scientists and environmentalists to conclude that global warming has begun in earnest.
While a great deal of attention has been paid to reducing emissions responsible for global warming, there has been far less focus on the role of population growth in climate change.
Population pressures are not the sole cause of global warming, but exacerbate ecological degradation. Providing effective voluntary family planning to the tens of millions of women worldwild who lack access to affordable reproductive health services would be a significant step towards reducing human impact on areas left vulnerable by climate change.
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| Population and the Environment |
| [updated May 2006] |
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Human needs are growing rapidly. We want more food, more cars, more fuel, and more buildings…more of everything and more than ever before. As our numbers, needs and desires grow, so do our demands and our impact on the environment. |
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| Population and Consumption |
| [updated April 2006] |
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Our growing numbers – now 6.5 billion and expected to grow to 9.1 billion by 2050 – require more space, more food and more resources. There are more of us consuming more, a pattern leading to the depletion of the world’s limited natural resources. But consumption is more than just a game of numbers. It is also a function of lifestyle choices and political, economic and social structures. |
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| Family Planning |
| What is Family Planning? |
| [updated August 2007] |
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Family planning services allow women and couples to plan the number and spacing of their children. These services include information about and the provision of modern methods of contraception, as well as "natural family planning" information. Abortion is not a method of family planning; in most cases it is the result of a lack of access to family planning services |
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| Gender |
| Men and Maternal Health: Sharing the Burden, Sharing the Benefits |
| [updated July 2007] |
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Every minute, a woman dies of pregnancy-related causes throughout the world. For every woman who dies, more than 20 others suffer pregnancy-related illness or infection. Because women bear the greatest burden of pregnancy-related and reproductive ill-health, it is easy to take the myopic approach that population programs are women’s programs. |
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| The Connection Between Family Planning and Gender-Based Violence |
| [updated October 2006] |
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Gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the most persistent and pervasive forms of human rights abuses in the world. In the tragic and complex cycle of violence, inequality, and exploitation, GBV is increasingly recognized as an important action point on the path toward a more just and sustainable world. Specifically, eliminating GBV contributes to efforts to empower women to determine the spacing and number of their children. |
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| Health |
| HIV/AIDS: A Global Pandemic |
| [updated May 2006] |
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HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) has infected more than 60 million men, women and children and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) has killed more than 25 million people since it's detection in 1981 making it one of the most tragic contagions in history. |
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| Population and Health |
| [updated April 2006] |
The story of population is also the story of women’s reproductive healthcare and family planning. Women and men who have access to family planning have the information, education and means to exercise their human right to choose the number and spacing of their children. Unfortunately, some 350 million women lack either the information or the means to obtain adequate voluntary family planning. Increased access to family planning gives couples greater control over fertility and often results in smaller family sizes and slower population growth rates.
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| Download (.pdf 124.58 KB) |
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| Policy |
| U.S. International Population Assistance |
| [updated August 2007] |
In the 1960s, the United States pioneered new national and international initiatives to meet the challenges of a rapidly growing population. The US understood both the dire need for and tremendous potential of international population assistance, based on the principles of volunteerism and informed choice, to achieve a better quality of life for women, children and families worldwide and to promote environmental sustanability and diversity.
While population and family planning remains a cornerstone of US global health and foreign assistance policy, ongoing and contentious debate about the scope and nature of the programs resulted in severe restrictions to US bilateral and multilateral assistance. |
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| Population and Poverty Alleviation |
| [updated May 2007] |
Poverty is a significant factor in environmental degradation, malnourishment, illiteracy and maternal and infant mortality. Population programs - including voluntary family planning and child survival programs - are an important part of poverty reduction efforts.
"The Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not squarely addressed. And that means stronger efforts to promote women's
rights, and greater investment in education and health, including reproductive health and family planning."
-former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan, Message to the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference, Bangkok, 16 Dec. 2002 |
| Download (.pdf 180.76 KB) |
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| Joint Fact Sheet on HR1225, Focus on Family Health Worldwide Act |
| [updated March 2007] |
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The Focus on Family Health Worldwide Act (H.R. 1225) is a bipartisan bill that calls for increased authorized funding for core USAID voluntary family planning programs, increasing assistance to the world’s poorest countries with the greatest need for family planning programs. Learn more about why PI and its partners support this legislation. |
| Download (.pdf 807.69 KB) |
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| United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) |
| [updated February 2007] |
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The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the world's largest multilateral source of family planning and reproductive health assistance to developing countries. Established in 1969 as an international agency of the United Nations, UNFPA "promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity." |
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| Uganda , From Great Success to Great Uncertainty |
| [updated February 2007] |
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The U.S. Government has hailed Uganda as the showcase success story of its Abstinence, Be faithful, and correct and consistent Condom use (ABC) AIDS prevention strategy. Posting impressive declines in HIV prevalence across the board, Uganda appeared to be on the path to eradication. That claim, however, was premature, and in the past few years, HIV infection rates have been steadily increasing. Uganda's turnaround has given new momentum to criticism of the U.S. Government's focus on abstinence over other prevention methods. |
| Download (.pdf 170.76 KB) |
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| Security |
| Global Population and Security |
| [updated February 2007] |
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As the largest population of people under 25 years of age enters its reproductive years, we must increase investments in reproductive health, family planning and education programs. Resources spent on these efforts now will pay off exponentially with tangible results in human capital. A woman delays childbirth to go to school. A mother is able to focus on her child's health rather than her own. The next generation of youth is in balance with economic growth and environmental limitations. These achievements, more than any weapon, will bring us closer to the long-term, global security we seek and so ardently believe is possible. |
| Download (.pdf 179.40 KB) |
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