The world recently gathered for the International AIDS Conference in Mexico. But I found myself agreeing with environmentalist Jonathon Porritt, who argues that family planning in the world's poorest countries should be dealt with as a higher priority than tackling HIV and AIDS.
That may sound absurd coming from someone who lives in a country, Kenya, whose prevalence rate has risen by 3%. But I have my reasons for supporting Porritt's point of view.
Porritt, the founder-director of Forum for the Future, told a science festival recently that failure to prioritize family planning programs will have a more damaging impact than HIV and AIDS.
In the controversial presentation, Porritt compared current levels of international aid available for family planning and for addressing HIV and AIDS. Funding for family planning has significantly reduced over the years, Mr Porritt said, while funding for HIV and AIDS has grown from USD 300,000 in 1996 to USD 8.3 billion in 2005.
The United Nations is now calling for funding to be increased to around USD 22 billion per annum. While acknowledging the crucial importance of continuing to address a disease which kills around three million people a year, Porritt argued that the world "would simply not be able to sustain a population of nine billion by 2050'' and family planning could be a solution.
A combination of accelerating climate change, severe water shortages, increased hunger and collapsing eco-systems, all worsened by high levels of average fertility in some of the worst-affected countries, represents more of a threat than HIV and AIDS on the world's population, he argued.
At the Town Hall in Cheltenham, his home town, Porritt said, "It's not that funding for HIV/Aids programmes should be reduced - though many are now approaching the effectiveness of that level of spending, particularly through US-funded programs."
On July 10 and 11, several media outlets reported on World Population Day and its focus on gender equality and family planning. UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, predicted that without proper family planning programs, world population will double to 12 billion by 2050. Family planning could also save the lives of a third of the 536,000 women who die every year from pregnancy-related complications, 99 percent of them in developing countries.
A country like Niger has a
total fertility rate of 7.5, according to the last DHS report of 2005
if the trend continues, and with the current population of 14 million, the
country will hit the 82 million mark in 2050 but if fertility is reduced to
3.5 the population will be at be 50 million that year.
While this is happening the world is yet to pay serious attention to family planning. Apart from rooting for someone who supports international family planning to win the US presidential elections, on behalf of my African sisters, I pray that family planning gets as much as funding as HIV/AIDS or more. I don't want to forget the role that traditional and religious have to play in helping the population understand the importance of using contraceptives.
In a message observing World Population Day, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, said that family planning "is essential to women's empowerment and gender equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life."
