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How to Tell the Biggest Stories of Our Times: Population-Environment Connections at SEJ 2013
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The original version of this article appeared on the Inter Press Service.
What does gorilla conservation have in common with the provision of contraceptives to women? How does rural-urban migration contribute to global warming? What does city planning in Kenya have to do with coastal erosion in the Philippines?
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Harvesting Peace: Food Security, Conflict, and Cooperation (Report Launch)
›In the wake of food riots in more than 30 countries in 2008 and the Arab Spring, in which food prices played an instigating role, the relationship between food security and instability demands a closer examination. “There is a lot of data on conflict, and a lot of data on food security, but it’s rarely brought together,” said Emmy Simmons, the author of the latest edition of ECSP Report. [Video Below]
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African Leaders Urge Action to Meet (and Succeed) MDG 5
›As world leaders gathered at the UN for a special event on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) last month, there was much to celebrate. Some of the MDG targets – on poverty reduction and safe drinking water, for example – have been reached ahead of the 2015 deadline. But on MDG 5, which addresses maternal mortality and reproductive health, progress lags shamefully behind.
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10 Steps for Expanding the Population, Health, and Environment Approach
›As their five-year funding cycle for supporting integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) programs around the world came to a close this fall, leaders from BALANCED Project – Building Actors and Leaders for Advancing Community Excellence in Development – came together at the Wilson Center to discuss lessons learned, best practices, and new ideas for the future.
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Emmy Simmons: To Improve Food Security and Prevent Conflict, Think and Commit Long Term
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“Food is really fundamental to people’s daily existence, and the price or the access to that food is clearly important to them, and people will turn out in the streets when that price spike is unanticipated,” says Emmy Simmons, author of Harvesting Peace: Food Security, Conflict, and Cooperation, in this week’s podcast.
Simmons gives an overview of the latest edition of ECSP Report, which examines how conflict affects food security, and how food security affects conflict.
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BALANCED Project Final Survey Results in Tanzania and Philippines
›The BALANCED Project just completed a five year run of supporting population, health, and environment (PHE) projects in South Asia and East Africa, and recent survey results indicate that the project has helped to increase access to family planning and cultivate more environmental awareness in several ecologically vulnerable areas.
The BALANCED initiative in Tanzania’s Saadani National Park, “the only terrestrial park in the country with a contiguous marine area,” released the results of a 2012 progress survey on its efforts to create community champions for sustainable natural resource management and family planning awareness. Compared to the last survey in 2009, they found increased family planning awareness, higher contraceptive distribution and usage, and improved discussion and acceptance of contraceptive use from male partners. BALANCED-trained community-based distributors provided contraception to “31 percent of all pill users and 21 percent of all condom users.” Survey results also show a greater community awareness of the impact of individual and collective actions on the surrounding biosphere. The report calls for the continued training of community-based distributors and PHE “champions,” along with outreach to the private sector in order to ensure training and distribution can continue without the permanent presence of the BALANCED Project. -
From Octopus Conservation to Disaster Relief: Vik Mohan on PHE in Madagascar
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When Tropical Cyclone Haruna struck in February 2013, leaving thousands without shelter and tens of thousands without water, it was a test for Blue Ventures’ integrated approach to development in southwest Madagascar. According to Dr. Vik Mohan, they passed.
“By the time the first aid organization arrived just to collect information, we had distributed to 17 villages already,” Mohan says in this week’s podcast. “We were the mouthpiece of the community, and because of our infrastructure on the ground, because of our good relationships with the community, we were able to procure and disseminate supplies that the community needed.”
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Five Years of Population, Health, and Environment Programs: What Works and What’s Next?
›More than 20 percent of the world’s population live in ecological hotspots, places rich in biodiversity but often lacking basic government services. Population, health, and environment – or PHE – programs address compounding stresses in these areas by helping to meet people’s needs for basic health services, including reproductive health care; promoting food security and poverty reduction; and teaching sustainable natural resource management. [Video Below]
Showing posts from category development.
