WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: WOMEN, POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT
Advocates Call for Inclusion of Voluntary Family Planning
“With 6.1 billion people relying on the resources of the same small planet, we're coming to realize that we're drawing from a finite account,” noted Time magazine’s August 26 cover story on the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. "The key now is to put people first and the environment second, but also to remember that when you exhaust resources, you destroy people." Time acknowledged that efforts to provide greater access to family planning and health care have proved effective and that rapid development will require good health care for the young since there are more than one billion people ages 15 to 24. Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA said, "It's a window of opportunity to build the economy and prepare for the future." Read: Time and The New York Times’ series of WSSD stories on population and environment:

• Bracing for Economic Changes, When the Population Grows No More
• Experts Scaling Back Their Estimates of World Population Growth  
• Forget Nature. Even Eden Is Engineered.

Women’s Rights
The Associated Press’ August 29 story discussed how bringing a water tap to a village could save women hours of daily walking to bring water home; how using solar energy to cook food could save them from having to collect firewood; and how giving them access to education or title to land could help them prosper and focus on their families. "Empowering women guarantees more of the desired results for children," said Remi Paris, a poverty reduction expert for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Getting credit and loans is virtually impossible for women who don't have title to their farms to use as collateral, said Eve Crowley, an expert on poverty alleviation and rural development for the FAO. Without that access to funds, women cannot improve or invest in the land, she said. Often the land they farm is less productive and they are restricted to so-called "women's crops" that feed the family but do not provide cash income. Read: Associated Press

Women’s Health and Funding
Air pollutants trapped inside homes from stoves that burn coal, wood or cow dung have been linked to the premature deaths of 2.1 million women and children each year, the World Health Organization said in an August 29 story by The Los Angeles Times. "The No. 1 killer of children under the age of 5 is pneumonia, an acute respiratory illness," said Yasmin von Schirnding, an epidemiologist with the WHO. "We were surprised at the number of mothers who had no idea that air pollution had any role in their children's respiratory illness," she said. Nitin Desai of the U.N. said, "It's a major priority of this summit. It brings together the health of women and children and the environmental dimension of saving forests and reducing air pollution." Read: The Los Angeles Times

The WHO also called for health spending in developing countries to double to 60 billion dollars a year by 2010, reported Agence France Presse on August 26. David Nabarro of the WHO, said an additional 30 billion dollars a year spent on health in developing countries, from the present level of 30 billion, would lead to "a six-fold increase in the value of production and eight million lives saved." Rich nations, he hoped, would meet at least half of the additional 30 billion required, with the rest coming from national governments. These sentiments were echoed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in an August 27 story by the Associated Press: "Millions of children continue to die unnecessarily each year for lack of health care, clean water, a safe indoor environment or adequate nutrition," he said. "While the world has committed itself to reducing child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015, the current rate of progress is on track for a reduction by only one fourth." Read: Associated Press

LATEST COVERAGE FUNDING FOR INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING
U.S. Funding for UNFPA
This summer President Bush is putting the U.S. on the wrong side of the battle lines, wrote Nicholas Kristof in his August 16 column in The New York Times. Kristof noted, “Conservatives are right to object to China's often brutal one-child policy. But only Washington could come up with a solution to Chinese problems that involves killing teenage girls in Burundi.” Kristof explained, “If I'm angry, it's because the figures conjure real faces of people I've met: Aisha Idris, a Sudanese peasant left incontinent after giving birth at 14, with no midwife or prenatal care, to a stillborn child; Mariam Karega, a young woman nursing her dying baby in a Tanzanian village far from any doctor; Sriy, a smart and vibrant 13-year-old Cambodian girl who was sold into prostitution by her stepfather and by now is probably dead of AIDS.” He concluded, “Somehow we have become the core of an Axis of Medieval.“ Read: The New York Times, an August 16 editorial by The Bangor Daily News (ME), an August 26 op ed in The Baltimore Sun (MD) by Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical Garden and chairman of the board of AAAS and Alan Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of AAAS and an August 26 op ed by John Martinson, board member of the U.S. Committee for the U.N. Population Fund.

According to an August 22 story by United Press International, UNFPA said two independent grassroots campaigns have emerged to try to close a budget gap caused by the U.S. decision to withhold $34 million in funds—seeking $1 from 34 million friends. Checks were already arriving in response to an appeal sent by e-mail and one person in Maine had sent 25,000 dollars, the fund said in a statement. "This is an example of the commitment of the American people to be part of international efforts to improve the quality of life of families in developing countries, especially of women," UNFPA Director Thoraya Obaid said in an August 22 story by Agence France Presse.

U.S. Funding Restrictions
President George W. Bush's reinstatement of restrictions on funding to overseas non-governmental health care organizations that provide abortion counseling has not led to a decline in the procedure in poor countries, U.S. Congressman Jim Greenwood told reporters after touring clinics and health care centers in Kenya. The Associated Press reported August 28 that Greenwood said, "The great irony...is that the advocates...have spoken as if having this language reinstated after eight years would in some way reduce abortions, that if these agencies can't talk about abortions, abortions won't occur." Organizations like the Family Planning Association of Kenya and Marie Stopes International, which counsel women in such situations, have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding that was also used to advise women on contraception and maternal and child health. "Once you stop funding reproductive health programs, maternal and child health care also declines," Greenwood said. Read: Associated Press and UN IRIN.

CHINA EASES FAMILY PLANNING POLICY
The Washington Post first reported on August 20 that times have changed for China’s one-child policy. The Jiangxi province abolished the permits several years ago and let women make their own decisions about birth control. It also stopped setting birth quotas and sterilization targets for family planning workers. The Post reported that the only punishment now for having an extra child is a fine. The Los Angeles Times reported August 23 that the change might seem semantic, but experts say it marks a significant step toward a kinder and gentler family-planning policy— and an acknowledgment of transformations in Chinese society. The Associated Press reported August 21 that Siri Tellier, UNFPA’s representative in Beijing, said the law appeared to confirm a trend toward more liberal birth control policies in China. Authorities may feel they can give up some coercive practices because many Chinese on their own now wish to have fewer children, for financial or lifestyle reasons, she said. Read: The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Associated Press

SAVING WOMEN’S LIVES
Gates Funds Diaphragm to Prevent HIV/AIDS
Low-tech efforts to slow the spread of HIV and give women some control over contraception have gotten a $46 million boost from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Associated Press reported on August 29 that the grants would support research at three U.S. universities to help those in developing nations. The San Francisco Chronicle reported August 28 that the grant ends an eight-year quest by UCSF researcher Nancy Padian to win funding for a never-tried approach that, in theory, could block the AIDS virus about as effectively as a much more expensive AIDS vaccine. The goal is to achieve at least a 33 percent reduction in new infections among women in developing countries. Padian's project will get the lion's share of $48 million in new Gates grants, which also will support a study in Uganda to test whether male circumcision —another low-cost intervention—can cut the risk of HIV infection among males by at least 50 percent, as some earlier research suggests. Read: Associated Press and San Francisco Chronicle

Fistulas: “A Pain of Labor That Never Ends”
The Boston Globe’s August 27 story told of Lengeresh Tadesse, who at 15 was too young to marry, too young to know when she became pregnant, and too young to give birth. The condition, called fistulas, leaves a hole between the bladder and the vagina or between the rectum and the vagina. Lengeresh had both. The Globe noted fistulas affects an estimated 2 million women worldwide, with 50,000 to 100,000 new cases each year. The overwhelming majority is in Africa. In Niger, the condition is so common that it is the leading cause of divorce nationwide. Just a small percentage of women with the condition will ever receive medical care. In Ethiopia, of the estimated 8,000 women that are affected each year, only about 1,500 are repaired annually. The rest suffer in silence. In Niger's capital, dozens of women camp out – some for years – at the national hospital awaiting surgery sponsored by the charity, CARE. Read: The Boston Globe

Women’s Policy
Iran's reformist Parliament has approved a bill that would grant women a right to seek a divorce equal to that of men for the first time since the Islamic revolution in 1979, reported The New York Times on August 27. The bill would have to be approved by the hard-line Guardian Council to become law, and that is unlikely. The Times noted its approval in Parliament is considered a big victory both for women and reformist politicians who have consistently sought the support of women, because it creates public pressure on the country's conservative Islamic rulers. Another provision of the bill would require a man to pay for health care if his wife became ill, reported The Times. At present, if a man refuses to pay for his wife's care, the case is sent to court, and judges have not consistently ruled in favor of the wives. Read: The New York Times

Inter Press Service reported August 16 that traditionalists who hold sway over public opinion in Swaziland, the last African nation to be ruled by a hereditary monarch, reject abortion as a woman's right over her body. Last week, a submission in favor of legalized abortion was presented for the first time to the Swazi Parliament by Senator Mbho Shongwe who believes sharp gender inequalities in society have, among other things, saddled Swazi women with unwanted children while leaving fathers free to withhold support. "We have to consider the health and rights of young women in the age of AIDS," Senator Shongwe told IPS. "Girls are going across the border for abortions in South Africa where the operation is legal. Or they are having unsafe kitchen table abortions here. That is the reality.”

An Islamic high court in northern Nigeria rejected an appeal today from a single mother sentenced to be stoned to death for having had sex out of wedlock, according to the Associated Press’ August 20 story. The woman's lawyers said they planned to file an appeal to a yet higher Islamic court. If that failed, they could appeal to the Supreme Court, where the case would force a showdown between Nigeria's constitutional and religious authorities. "I believe [the stoning] will be quashed in the end," said Shehu Sani, President of Civil Rights Congress, in an August 22 story by The Christian Science Monitor. "It's part of the political scheming in this part of the country." Ms. Lawal is the second Nigerian woman to be condemned to death by Islamic courts for sex out of wedlock. One case was dismissed in January, and the other has been delayed until the woman is healthy enough to appear in court. All the women are poor, uneducated, single mothers from rural villages, noted AP. Read: Associated Press and The Christian Science Monitor

EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS
In her August 27 column in Newsday, Marie Cocco wrote the U.S. delegation to Johannesburg has been trying to scratch "reproductive health services" from official agreements, and pencil in "basic health services" instead. Our new partners in the war against "reproductive health services" have included the likes of Algeria, Libya, Sudan, even Iran and Iraq, two designated members of the "axis of evil." Adrienne Germain, President of the International Women's Health Coalition, said, "When he's doing a war on terrorism, they're the axis of evil. When he's waging a war on women they're his allies." Cocco concluded, “Bush talks openly of war among men. He counts on this preoccupation to conceal his campaign against women.” Read: Newsday

Every year we celebrate Aug. 26, the anniversary of women's suffrage, wrote Ellen Goodman in her August 27 column. In our time-honored tradition, our one-woman jury assembles to dispense the Equal Rites Awards, those coveted prizes given to people who labored mightily over the last 12 months to set back the cause of women. In Goodman’s presentation of the International Ayatollah Award, she noted—last year, it went to the Taliban—this year, it goes to the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia – the religious police wouldn't let 15 girls out of a burning school because their hair wasn't covered and they weren't wearing abayas. In memory of their victims, we offer these men the fate of their Taliban brothers. Goodman continued, while we're thinking global, let us not forget the Mixed Messenger Award. This goes to our own president. The leader who bragged about liberating women of the world now hedges, hems, and haws about the UN treaty for women's equality. We give George a mouth with one side. Read: The Boston Globe

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The above summary was written by Elena Cabatu and Kathy Bonk at the Communications Consortium Media Center, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-8700. Redistribution is encouraged with credit to CCMC.