Lack of Family Planning to Impact on Somalia’s Fragile State
By Henry Neondo
MOGADISHU---Only one percent of married women in Somalia have access to modern contraception, and their rate of fertility is among the highest in the world, says the US’s Population Reference Bureau.
With the 8th highest birth rate in the world and an average family size of seven children, Somalia illustrates the terrible quandary of millions of the world's most vulnerable women. They lack the means to choose how many children to have and when, because they lack access to family planning.
Without reproductive health services and better maternal-child care, "rates will remain unacceptably high, and children will be inadequately nourished," according to a statement accompanying the PRB's 2011 World Population Data Sheet.
"Somali women are not alone. More than 215 million women around the world want to plan their families yet lack access to modern contraception," said Geoff Dabelko, Director of Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and one of the speakers at the event.
"Family planning is very much central to any discussion of climate change and security, because investments in reproductive health are vital to global development, with widespread benefits for reducing poverty, empowering women, protecting the environment, and addressing the threat of civil unrest."
At an event organised by the Aspen Institute at the National Press Club Tuesday, experts on reproductive health, security, climate change, and the crisis in Somalia spoke about the impact across the board of depriving women of the means to limit the size of their families, and the long-term implications for the economic, environmental and political health of fragile nations in particular.
Even before the crisis, young children in Somalia were severely underweight--32 percent of them, according to UNICEF.
Currently at 9.9 million, the nation's population is projected to grow to 13.3 million by 2025, and to 22.6 million by 2050.
"The global population is expected to reach the seven-billion mark this year and to hit 10 billion by 2012," said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and chair of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health.
"Somalia shows the extent to which failure to learn from the famine in 1992, and our failure to prioritize the health of women and children has become a global problem, one none of us can ignore."
At the recent UN conference in New York in September, the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health (GLC) asked world leaders to double their investment from US$3.1 to US$6.7 billion to provide women in poor countries with the family planning services they were promised 17 years ago at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.
The 16 members of the GLC, led by Robinson, include the current and former heads-of-state of Brazil, Ireland, Finland, Latvia, Liberia, Malawi, New Zealand and Norway; singer Annie Lennox; and prominent public health officials, among them the former president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United States Surgeon General.
Their central message is that the right to health and to family planning can mean the difference between life and death; every year, 358,000 women – most of them in Africa – die from pregnancy-related causes.
Walid Abdelkarim, Principal Officer and Team Leader for Somalia and Support to the African Union, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, noted the importance of learning from the past in preventing future crises such as the one he deals with daily in Somalia.
"In Somalia, as in many developing countries, the first and most essential step to improving food security and preventing famine is improving the lives of women," Abdelkarim said during the event at the National Press Club. "Agricultural reforms, good governance and strengthening of infrastructure and health systems are vital, but they will not stand if women are not prioritized in humanitarian relief efforts, and given the chance to be central players in trade, pricing, accounting, education, and health."
Women who have access to family planning have fewer children, and the ones they do have are healthier and better educated. Long-term, scientists have reported, investments in reproductive health are reflected in lower carbon emissions and a reduced likelihood of civil unrest, as smaller families help lift communities out of poverty and reduce pressure on food security.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reports that the population in the Horn of Africa has more than doubled since 1974, when the region was affected by the first in a string of major droughts--despite food shortages and high rates of child mortality.
The main cause of the crises in the region is too little rainfall, but lack of access to family planning and a tradition of large families have been major contributors, according to the UNFPA.