POPULATION: Where’s Family Planning on Climate Change Radar?

Zofeen Ebrahim interviews noted social demographer KAREN HARDEE

KARACHI, Sep 17 2009 (IPS) – Are climate change and reproductive health two disparate subjects?
Not if one asks Dr Karen Hardee, a social demographer for over 20 years, with extensive experience in population and development as well as family planning.

The world population is expected to reach seven billion by 2011, and there are 200 million women who have unmet family planning needs, resulting in millions of unintended births, according to the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau.

In Pakistan, for instance, family planning and reproductive health services still remain out of reach for millions of Pakistanis, she said in a 2008 research commentary she co-authored, Population, Fertility and…

HEALTH: New Task Force Targets Poor in Breast Cancer Fight

Chryso D’Angelo

NEW YORK, Nov 4 2009 (IPS) – The rate of breast cancer in developing countries is on the rise, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, which estimates that the poor will account for more than 55 percent of breast cancer deaths this year.
Women are coming in with high stage breast cancers stage 3 or higher and lesions that are protruding, Dr. Felicia Knaul, director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative, told IPS. By the time the disease is diagnosed, it is often too late for effective treatment.

To meet this global challenge, cancer experts, government officials, and representatives of international organisations participated in an international conference Nov 3-5 in the United States.

Breast Cancer in Developing Countries; Meeti…

WORLD AIDS DAY: Children Still Falling Through the Cracks

Mirela Xanthaki

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2009 (IPS) – While most HIV-positive people in the Western world can gain decades of good health thanks to increasingly effective drug regimens, in the developing world, nearly a third of children born with HIV are still dying before their first birthday.
Maureen Sakala participates in a programme that provides HIV medications to both her and her son Christopher, and will first test him for HIV when he is six weeks old. Credit: UNICEF

Maureen Sakala partici…

DEVELOPMENT: Clinton Lays Out U.S. Strategy

Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 2010 (IPS) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday pledged to make development, along with defence and diplomacy, a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy and results, rather than ideology, a guiding principle in devising development policy.
In what was billed as a major address to the Peterson Institute for International Economics here, Clinton listed six key features of the Barack Obama administration s approach to development.

They include greater coordination with recipients, with other donors, and among the many U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon, that deliver foreign aid; and a more-targeted focus on key sectors in poor countries; namely, health, agriculture, security, education, energy, and local governance.

Washingt…