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Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme in Crisis and
Post-Crisis Situations
Establishing sexual and reproductive health services
in times of crisis is essential as it helps save lives.
As a new programme, the SPRINT Initiative aims to increase the regional capacity of stakeholders to implement the Minimum Initial Services Package (MISP) for sexual and reproductive health in crises. The initiative is funded by AusAID and coordinated by the International Planned Parenthood Federation – East & Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The SPRINT Initiative was launched at Parliament House in Canberra on 18 February 2008. The launch will immediately be followed by a seminar for NGOs.
>>>>SPRINT leaflet
>>>>Radio Australia broadcast
>>>>SPRINT Press Release
>>>>AusAID Press Release
>>>>Canberra Times article
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SPRINT Launch (l-r): Jane Singleton, ARHA; Dr Tran Ngyuen Toan, IPPF; Dr Anna Whelan, UNSW; Dr Wilma Doedons, UNFPA; Bob McMullan, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance
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Hyderabad to governments: "you're moving too slowly"
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The fourth Asia Pacific Conference on Sexual and Reproductive health, held in October in Hyderabad, India, has finished with an open letter to be sent to governments telling them they are moving too slowly in reducing maternal deaths, enabling young people to avoid HIV and making family planning more accessible. ARHA CEO Jane Singleton attended the conference.
>>>UNFPA press release
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Women Deliver - special edition
WORLD attention needs to be focused on the urgent need for investment in the health of women, mothers and newborn babies, according to the UK medical journal The Lancet. The magazine has brought out a special edition to mark the Women Deliver conference in London (Oct 18-20). It says new estimates of maternal mortality for 2005 suggest that the aims of Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG5)—to reduce maternal mortality by three quarters by 2015—are unlikely to be met without massive change. ARHA CEO Jane Singleton is attending the conference.
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In many remote villages in the Philippines, the human populations have been growing rapidly at the same time as fish populations have been falling. Philippine fishermen living in these areas can readily understand the the link between family size and the health of the marine environment, according to a US development expert, Heather D'Agnes.
Ms D'Agnes visited Australia recently in a visit organised by ARHA, Friends of the Earth and Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia. She met members of the Australian Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (PGPD) on 19 September.
Ms D'Agnes said Philippine men and women realised it made sense to have smaller, healthier families while at the same time working to improve the marine environment by setting aside breeding grounds for fish. Aid projects world-wide had demonstrated the benefits of combining family planning with improved environmental management, rather than approaching the two areas separately.
>>>Life Matters interview
>>>Interview on Connect Asia (Radio Austrralia)
>>>Transcript Connect Asia
>>>Article in The Australian newspaper
>>>Article in Earth Times
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Gordon Brown to UN: Millennium Goals will not be met at this rate |
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The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has warned the UN that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be met by 2015 because the pace is too slow.
"The calendar says we are half way from 2000 to 2015, but the reality is that we are million miles away from success," Mr Brown said. "It is time to call it what it is: a development emergency that needs emergency action. "
>>>BBC News item
>>>Full text of speech
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YOUTH QUAKE
Earth faces the biggest generation of adolescents and teenagers in its history – a “youthquake” with major social, political and demographic implications, says the UK's Optimum Population Trust in a new report.
Link to report
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The world goes to town
Making the most of the "city change"
Efforts to alleviate world poverty will increasingly need to be directed to cities rather than rural areas, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has predicted in its annual State of the World Population (SOWP) Report, launched in Australia at Parliament House on 28 June.
UNFPA says next year, for the first time, more than half the world's population (3.3 million people) will live in cities. |
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The "city change" will present challenges to policy makers, who will have to come up with new ideas to proactively manage the influx to cities to maximise the benefits and minimise the harm.
* UNFPA State of the World Population
* PGPD press release
GENDER INEQUALITY'S COST
Discrimination against women is costing billions of dollars in the Asia-Pacific, according to a UN report.
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The report, Surging Ahead In Uncertain Times, was launched on 18 April by the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
ESCAP's head, Kim Hak-Su, said the cost of barriers to employment in the region was more than $42 billion, while a further $16-30billion was lost through gender gaps in education.
>>>article >>>report |
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WEBSITE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
A website, Your Sex Health, has been developed by a team at Melbourne University. Aimed at young people (16–25), it plays out scenarios based on real-life dilemmas, such as becoming pregnant, being pressured into sex, and relationship problems.
PREVENTION NOT PROHIBITION: new campaign launched by in US Catholics for a Free Choice - 7 March
A provocative campaign highlights the fact that the majority of American Catholics support access to contraception and legal abortion, and support policies that prevent, rather than criminalize, abortion. Press release AdvertisementsUNIFEM, UNAIDS and Johnson & Johnson announce Grants for combined strategies to end violence against women and prevent HIV and AIDS - 1 March 2007
CHRISTIAN RIGHT NGOs TARGET THE UN
Review of report by PRA, The Indypendent, 22 February Full report at Political Research Associates website
UNSAFE ABORTIONS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Estimates of hospital admissions in study by Guttmacher Institute, USWORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION AND THE LANCET
The World Health Organisation has joined The Lancet medical journal in a campaign for the "proper positioning" of sexual and reproductive health
READ Executive Summary of Lancet series
LISTEN to a PODCAST of the series launch and/or DOWNLOAD all documents in the series
UK REPORT: RETURN OF THE POPULATION GROWTH FACTOR - 31 January, 2007, released by the UK All Party Group on Population and Development.
LINKS:Article in The Independent
ARHA Press release
BUSH'S BUDGET SLASHES INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING Population Action International 12 Feb 2007
UNESCAP REPORT: ASIA-PACIFIC ENVIRONMENT AT BOILING POINT - UN press release 22 December 2006
UNFPA IN THE PACIFIC - INTRODUCING
THE PACIFIC'S OWN MALE CONDOMS
from the Pacnews Digest 13 Feb 2007
- report in The Fiji Times
POPULATION AND
CLIMATE CHANGE - 11 Feb
Professor Ian Lowe, President
of the Australian
Conservation
Foundation,
Farley Lecture
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"I THOUGHT SHE HAD COME FROM ANOTHER PLANET"
- from a new book of case studies of programs to reduce violence against women
In Mauritania, it used to be taboo to talk about rape. When the founder
of
the Mauritanian Association for Mother and Child Health
started a campaign to support rape victims, a |
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Women's Ministry official said "I thought she had come from another planet". Now, survivors of rape are no longer being punished, but are finding a new sense of self-worth ... a story from "Programming to Address Violence Against Women", just released by the UNFPA.
DOWNLOAD pdf of report
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A London-based advertising agency has produced a short but powerful video. It reveals that violence against women is oneof the most common forms of violence in the world.
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One of the world's foremost economists, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, has issued a plea for more resources to be devoted contraception and family planning. Professor Sachs is this year's BBC Reith Lecturer delivering a series entitled Bursting at the Seams. >>>on population
>>>link to BBC |
Young
Women's Gathering
This event was held in
Sydney on
13-14 July
A report and photos have
been posted at the
YWG web page
>>>press release
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