UNFPA’s recently released State of World Population 2012 brings family planning to the center of the development debate. “There is indisputable evidence that when family planning is integrated into broader economic and social development initiatives, it can have a positive multiplier effect on human development and the well-being of entire nations,” the authors write. The report employs a rights-based approach to make the case for universal access to family planning – a goal which we are far from as 222 million women from the developing world currently have an unmet need for modern contraceptives. Meeting this need and improving quality of reproductive healthcare elsewhere would cost an additional $4.1 billion a year, but save approximately $5.7 billion in maternal and newborn health services. Other recommendations include increasing financial support and political commitment to ensure that family planning is of high quality, reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions, including emergency contraception in family planning services, and engaging boys and men.

People don’t often think of gender issues when they think of the environment, but in fact sustainable development in many of the world’s most bio-diverse regions has a lot to do with women’s health and well-being.

At this year’s World Conservation Congress, where the theme was improving the inherent resilience of nature, ECSP’s Sandeep Bathala presented alongside Blue Ventures’ Gildas Andriamalala about the connections between women’s health and the environment – specifically on the potential of population, health, and environment (PHE) approaches as an effective sustainable development strategy.

The original version of this article, by Vik Mohan, appeared on Blue Ventures’ blog.

I recently spent a hectic and intense couple of weeks in the village of Andavadoaka, where Blue Ventures’ community health project is based, during my annual visit to Madagascar. Although I founded our Safidy (meaning “choice”) health program several years ago, each return visit brings new and inspiring stories and lessons from our team on the ground.

“We know maternal health medicines are safe, we know they’re effective, we know they’re essential to keeping women healthy throughout pregnancy and childbirth,” said Kristy Kade at the Wilson Center on October 23. But lack of supply, poor quality, and misuse means they do not always help the women who need them. [Video Below]

Obstetric fistula is “not just a medical issue, but a human issue,” said Dr. Luc de Bernis, senior maternal health advisor at UNFPA, during a September 27 panel discussion at the Wilson Center. Obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal that can develop between the vagina and the bladder and/or rectum during prolonged labor without proper medical intervention, is preventable and treatable but continues to affect more than two million women worldwide, mostly in developing countries where women lack access to cesarean services. Women stricken with it face severe pain and suffering, social stigmatization, and usually give birth to a stillborn child.

This summer, 26 countries and private donors met at the London Summit on Family Planning to pledge $2.6 billion to expand family planning services to 120 million more women in the poorest countries around the world. But while the summit renewed focus on reproductive health with its ambitious target, “we’re now at that point where we have to really sit down and work through” how to achieve that goal, said Julia Bunting of the UK’s Department for International Development at the Wilson Center on September 17. [Video Below]

People are still talking about this summer’s London Summit on Family Planning, which was hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Department of International Development (DIFD) on July 11. On Monday here at the Wilson Center, the Environmental Change and Security Program featured representatives from USAID, DFID, and Gates Foundation for a standing-room only panel discussion of the landmark event.

There are 1.2 billion adolescents (ages 10 to 19) in the world today, accounting for 17 percent of the global population. They are the largest youth cohort in history, and 90 percent live in the developing world. Within that broad age group, very young adolescents (ages 10 to 14) often fall through the cracks of international development work, especially when it comes to health, and reproductive health in particular.