UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
|
| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
|
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This newsletter is being made available by the Population Information
Network (POPIN) of the United Nations Population Division (DESIPA), in
collaboration with Population Communication International. For further
information please contact Patrice_Newman@together.org
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INTERNATIONAL DATELINE
A Population and Development News and Information Service
JUNE WORLD POPULATION UPDATE:
5,782,000,000 (Population
Reference Bureau)
JUNE 1996
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY'S COMMON VISION OF WHAT OUGHT TO BE
DONE ABOUT POPULATION and other development issues has been
articulated and largely agreed on at a series of United Nations-
sponsored global conferences. Now, says the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), "the world's nations by their actions or
inactions will choose their demographic future." In its new report,
The State of World Population 1996, UNFPA says that "meeting the
universally agreed goals is vital for the future of cities and for
all prospects." This year's State of World Population focuses on
urbanization--including both its undesirable challenges and its
opportunities. On the positive side, the report points out that
cities provide capital, labor and markets for entrepreneurs at all
levels of the economy. Cities, the UNFPA report continues, also
speed social transformation--health, literacy and social mobility are
all higher in urban areas. State of World Population 1996 also
points out that key indicators of women's equality and autonomy tend
to be higher in cities, including the closing of gender gaps in
education and access to family planning, sexual health and other
reproductive health services. On the negative side, the report says,
runaway urban growth could be overwhelmed by the growing numbers of
the poor and dispossessed. In developing countries, there are an
estimated 600 million people in urban areas who cannot meet their
basic needs for shelter, water and healthcare, UNFPA says, adding:
"The new urban masses' success in finding livelihoods will determine
the viability of cities and nations."
LARGER AND MORE EFFECTIVE SOCIAL INVESTMENT IS REQUIRED TO COPE
SUCCESSFULLY WITH URBAN GROWTH, says State of World Population 1996,
sub-titled: Changing Places: Population, Development and the Urban
Future. Such investments, UNFPA says, should include health,
especially reducing infant and maternal mortality, improving
reproductive health, promoting family planning and sexual health, and
controlling the spread of infectious diseases; education, especially
for girls and women; and promoting autonomy and equality for women
by these and other means. Recalling that pledges on these issues
were among those made at the U.N.'s international conferences in
Cairo on population, in Beijing on women and at related regional
meetings of high-level government ministers, the report says:
"Releasing the potential of the female half of the urban population
will be one of the keys to both social cohesion and economic
progress." However, the report emphasizes, the task cannot be left
entirely to governments. As much as anything else, it says, a
successful urban future depends on involving entire communities,
especially women and the poor, in a constructive political process.
"Especially in countries where poverty is greatest, discrimination
against women most severe and population pressures felt most keenly,"
the UNFPA report says, "national efforts cannot succeed unaided."
The authors add that, "the causes and effects of urbanization cross
national boundaries: so too must cooperation and compassion."
IN ITS 76 PAGES, THE UNFPA REPORT FOCUSES ON A VARIETY OF URBAN
ISSUES in text, graphs and charts. Poverty, health and education
issues are explored, followed by sections on urban population
dynamics; sources of city growth--including natural population
increase and migration; urban and rural connections, and policies and
strategies aimed at improving life in the world's cities. Among
problems addressed in the UNFPA report are unemployment, the plague
of violence, inadequate supplies of power and clean water, and
environmental health risks. On the last point, The State of World
Population observes that cities harbor threats to health "unknown in
rural settings." As the most important of these, the report cites
air and water pollution from industrial activity and automotive
exhaust. For example, Mexico City and Sao Paulo, Brazil, are
afflicted with unacceptable levels of carbon monoxide, ozone
pollution and particulates that contribute to both respiratory and
cardiovascular diseases. In Cairo, where the lead concentration in
the air is five to six times greater than global norms, children's
blood has lead content levels up to five times higher than children
in rural Egypt. In Mombasa, Kenya, UNFPA says, the demand for family
planning services is likely to increase by up to 700 percent over the
next 20 years, yet even the current demand there cannot be met. In
Asia, the urbanization situation is less critical. By world
standards, the region is not highly urbanized, in part because
governments have long recognized the need to keep the rural-to-city
movement in check. Nevertheless, the report says, the rapid economic
growth in the region may accelerate the migration to cities. North
Africa, already highly urbanized, is likely to become more so, fueled
by high fertility rates and rural-to-urban migration, in addition to
a large inflow of migrant workers from outside the country--a
phenomenon which also fuels growth in the Gulf States.
For information on obtaining copies of State of World Population
1996: Changing Places: Population, Development and the Urban Future,
contact: UNFPA, 220 East 42nd St., New York, NY, 10017, USA.
(The State of World Population 1996, United Nations Population
Fund, New York)
* * * * *
IN BRIEF . . .
. . . A HORMONAL CONTRACEPTIVE FOR MEN has undergone a promising
trial conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in nine
countries on four continents. After 9-14 weekly injections of
testosterone enanthate--a synthetic derivative of the male hormone,
testosterone--participants in the study experienced dramatic
reductions in the concentration of sperm in their semen. This
resulted in a 98.6 percent contraceptive efficacy rate--comparable
to hormonal methods for women such as the oral contraceptive pill.
When treatment was stopped, the men took between 112 and 201 days to
reach pre-treatment levels of sperm production. WHO considers the
need for weekly injections--required by this particular hormone--a
drawback and is therefore studying longer-acting testosterone
derivatives as well as combined hormonal preparations.
(Press Release, World Health Organization, 2 April 1996, Geneva)
. . . CHINA'S HUGE APPETITE FOR ENERGY implies an urgent need for an
energy conservation law, backed up with preferential taxes and loan
programs, says Zhou Fengqi, director of the State Planning
Commission's Energy Research Institute. Otherwise, Zhou says,
China's environmental protection policies will be rendered
meaningless. Speaking at an international symposium in Hong Kong on
sustainable energy development in Asia, Zhou said the China must
develop a comprehensive system of management and planning for its
energy needs. China ranks as the world's third-largest energy
consumer and the World Health Organization lists six of its cities
among the 10 most polluted in the world. Per capita energy use is
ten percent of that in the United States. (South China Morning Post,
18 May 1996, Hong Kong)
. . . MATERNAL MORTALITY has been severely underestimated, according
to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO). About
585,000 deaths from pregnancy-related causes occur annually, says
WHO--almost 80,000 more than previously estimated. Ninety-nine
percent of those deaths occur in developing countries, with Asian
countries accounting for 55 percent of all maternal-related deaths
and African countries registering 40 percent. According to Susan
Holck of WHO's Reproductive Health Program, "maternal mortality is
a litmus test of the status of women, their access to health care and
the adequacy of the healthcare system in responding to their needs."
WHO says that estimating maternal deaths is extremely difficult
because many countries keep poor records of births and deaths. Only
78 countries--containing some 35 percent of the world's population--
report cause of death in their record-keeping. (The Earth Times, 15
March 1996, New York)
. . . ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT can be used to rid water of disease-causing
organisms that lead to often fatal illnesses such as cholera, typhoid
fever, dysentery, and hepatitis. Physicist Ashok J. Gadgil and his
colleagues have created a simple tabletop device that takes in water
from a well or hand pump, bathes it with ultraviolet radiation from
a mercury-vapor lamp, and sends it out free of germs. Gadgil says
that ultraviolet light has the "highest germicidal efficiency" at a
wavelength of 254 nanometers. The current model can disinfect 15
gallons per minute at a cost of only US$.02 cents per metric ton of
water, weighs 15 pounds, costs US$300, draws only 40 watts of power
supplied by solar cells, can run unsupervised in remote locations,
and has a service life of 15 years.
(Science News, 2 March 1996, New York)
. . . AROUND HALF OF WOMEN IN ZIMBABWE have their first child before
reaching age 20, says the 1994 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health
Survey. An average woman's age at first birth has been rising in
Zimbabwe in recent years. For women currently aged 25-29, the median
age at first birth is 19.7 years, compared with 19.3 years for women
aged 30-34. Zimbabwean teenage girls aged 15-19 who have not
attended secondary school are three times as likely to have given
birth as those who have attended secondary school. (Zimbabwe
Demographic and Health Survey 1994, September 1995, Central
Statistical Office, P.O. Box 8063, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe)
* * * * *
FOUR YEARS AFTER THE EARTH SUMMIT IN RIO, OTHER ISSUES ARE
CROWDING OUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA. According to Barbara
Crossette of The New York Times, the recent two-week meeting of the
Commission on Sustainable Development--dedicated to the notion that
nations can continue expanding their economies without destroying
their environment--was characterized by a sense that issues such as
unemployment and economic decline are worrying rich and poor
countries alike, to the detriment of environmental concerns. In many
countries, Crossette says, environment ministries and private
organizations say they are frustrated by their inability to make
environmental impact a major factor in economic policy-making.
According to Nitin Desai, the United Nations' Under Secretary General
for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, the
environmental movement must broaden its scope and get its issues onto
other agendas. "When we focus only on environmental problems," Desai
says, "we won't get very far unless we move backward and focus on
agriculture policy, energy policy, transport policy--all the economic
policies that affect the environment."
NEVERTHELESS, THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MEETINGS REGISTERED
SOME INTERNATIONAL PROGRESS. Preparing for a major review next year
of how far the world has come since the 1992 Earth Summit, the
Commission heard reports on national plans for environmental
protection in the next century, and hundreds of municipalities have
also written plans of action--bringing the concept of environmental
protection to urban neighborhoods and the grass roots. Britain's
Secretary of the Environment, John Gummer, said that the meetings had
taken an important step in bringing the world's oceans and their
resources under the scrutiny of United Nations environmental bodies.
"We are accepting as a world community that there are to be rules,"
Gummer said, adding: "Until this conference, the oceans were
untouched by the Rio process."
(New York Times, 5 May 1996, United Nations, New York)
* * * * *
CFCs--CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS--SMUGGLED INTO THE UNITED STATES
THREATEN THE RECOVERY OF EARTH'S BELEAGUERED OZONE SHIELD. Under
the Montreal Protocol, U.S. manufacturers ceased production of CFCs
as of January 1, 1996. But according to a study published by the
Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, growing illegal
trade "clearly threaten[s] the integrity of the phaseout schedules
[under the treaty] and the rate of recovery of the ozone layer."
Currently, says the report's author Duncan Brack, CFCs appear to be
"the second most lucrative commodity smuggled through Miami, exceeded
in value only by cocaine." Feeding the U.S. demand for CFCs are some
100 million automotive air conditioners that depend on CFC
refrigerants and that periodically need repair. Brack says that many
repair shop buyers may not be aware that the replacement CFCs are
smuggled into the country illegally. According to Brack's report,
Russia and its former republics are "a significant source of most of
the illegally traded materials." He says that Russian plants may be
producing 60 million pounds of CFCs a year over what they are
reporting to the United Nations. Not only has the Russian government
taken little action to limit overproduction, Brack says, but the hard
currency available for CFCs on the black market poses "a major
temptation in an economy undergoing such dramatic convulsions."
(Science News, 25 May 1996, New York)
* * * * *
A PHILIPPINE SENATOR AND A U.S.-BASED NON-GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANIZATION (NGO)--both of which were trailblazers in their
countries' population activities--shared the United Nations' 1996
Population Award. The legislator is Leticia Ramos-Shahani, chosen
for her more than three decades of leadership in the national and
international population fields. A leading exponent of social
development, public health and environmental sustainability, Senator
Shahani spearheaded a campaign in the Philippine Senate that resulted
in establishing legislative population programs at a time when the
topic was nearly too sensitive for discussion in the chamber.
Internationally, Shahani is active with the Global Committee of
Parliamentarians on Population and Development, the Asian Forum on
Population and Development, and the International Green Cross. In
1985, she was secretary-general of the review conference in Nairobi,
Kenya on the United Nations Decade for Women.
SHAHANI SHARES THE U.N. POPULATION AWARD WITH PATHFINDER
INTERNATIONAL, cited for nearly four decades of advocacy in
developing and improving family planning programs and creating
awareness of population issues. Pathfinder was providing funds,
contraceptive supplies and technical aid long before the U.S.
government entered the population field. Since then, it has
supported more than 2,000 family planning programs in over 30
countries including training programs, technical assistance, programs
for adolescents, service delivery models, and integrated family
planning and HIV/AIDS/sexually transmitted disease prevention
programs. In several instances, says the United Nations, Pathfinder
has used privately raised funds to sustain national programs when
foreign assistance funds were unavailable. According to the United
Nations, Pathfinder has pioneered many advances in family planning--
often in challenging or even hostile circumstances--through a policy
of investing in people and organizations committed to bringing family
planning services to those most in need.
THERE WERE 24 NOMINATIONS FOR THE 1996 AWARD, including 16
individuals and 8 institutions. Each award consists of a diploma,
a gold medal and a US$12,500 prize.
(Press Release, 23 February 1996, U.N. Department of Public
Information, New York)
* * * * *
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA IS THE HOME OF MORE THAN 2000 GRAINS,
VEGETABLES, ROOTS, FRUITS AND OTHER FOODS that could potentially feed
the continent or other parts of the world, says the first in a
planned series of reports entitled, "Lost Crops of Africa." An
expert panel examining indigenous African grains said that Africa has
more varieties of cereals than any other continent. These include
its own species of rice, millet, sorghum and several dozen other
grains. Forthcoming studies in the series will focus on native
fruits, vegetables, legumes and other foods. According to the grains
report, issued by the U.S. National Research Council, an arm of the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences, local grains nourish millions of
Africans, but have lost out in popularity to such imports as wheat,
rice and maize. Only a few of Africa's indigenous grains receive
concerted research, development and marketing support to improve
their quality and expand their use. Such grains and other native
foods are considered"lost" not because they are unknown, the report
said, but because they are given little or no attention by the
mainstream of international agricultural science and are often even
ignored by Africans outside certain regions where they are native.
DURING THE COLONIAL ERA, EUROPEAN AUTHORITIES, MISSIONARIES AND
RESEARCHERS JUDGED UNFAMILIAR NATIVE GRAINS INFERIOR to foreign
cereals such as wheat and corn, the report says. Thus the imported
grains--made convenient and attractive by modern milling, processing
and packaging--became favored by Africans as well. Over time, says
the report, the old grains took on the stigma of being second-rate
food for the poor or subsistence rations for hard times. "Africa is
called 'the hungry continent,' yet it is a cornucopia of food plants
people are not taking advantage of," said Dr. Noel D. Vietmeyer, the
staff director for the report. The report says that studying and
improving Africa's native grains should become an international
priority. Not only because this would open up a new front in
battling Africa's food shortages, but also because it could provide
the world with new sources of food amid concerns about global warming
and climate change, and population growth.
AFRICAN GRAINS TEND TO BE HARDY, LESS DEPENDENT ON LARGE AMOUNTS
OF WATER OR IRRIGATION, and more heat- and drought-tolerant than
other major cereals, says the grains report, adding that, "for the
future, such resilient crops will be vital for extending cereal
production onto the ever-more-marginal lands that will have to be
pressed into service to feed the several billion new arrivals." The
report spotlighted a half dozen African grains that are likely to
become crucial in feeding the more than 40 nations of that continent
and others elsewhere. While a couple of cereals have already
registered some success through development, the report said, the
potential of others is virtually untapped. Among the grains
highlighted were: pearl millet--domesticated from a wild grass of the
southern Sahara 4,000 years ago; african rice--grown in West Africa
for at least 1,500 years; sorghum--which thrives on marginal sites
where other grains fail, and tef--a staple cereal of Ethiopia which
is ground into flour and used to make the flat fermented bread called
injera.
(New York Times, 23 April 1996, Washington)
* * * * *
NATURE IS LESS TO BLAME FOR FAMINES THAN ARE THE WRONGHEADED
ACTIVITIES AND POLICIES OF HUMANKIND, according to conferees at a
symposium of the Development Studies Association, held in Dublin,
Ireland. The sessions were attended by 150 academicians and relief
workers from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who debated the
topic: "A World Without Famine? New Approaches to Aid and
Development." Conference host Joan Burton, Irish Minister of State
for Overseas Development, argued that governments providing overseas
famine relief were undermining their own efforts by simultaneously
supporting the arms trade, thus fueling conflict--a primary cause of
famine. Burton pointed out that the flood of arms to Third World
countries parallels an alarming shrinkage of financial and food aid
to developing regions. Patrick Webb of the Rome-based World Food
Program said food assistance peaked in 1993 at 17 million tons but
had plunged to less than 10 million tons just two years later. And
according to Oxford University's David Keen, famine is even tolerated
if not encouraged as a weapon of war. He argued that in Sudan, the
population was literally starved out of the central region to give
exploiters access to the oil-rich area.
SOME CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS DREW ON THE LESSONS OF HISTORY to
dramatize the impact of policy on famine. In the 1840s, Ireland's
Great Potato Famine, usually linked to a catastrophic crop blight
compounded by a rigid free-market policy and harsh attitudes toward
relief, wiped out nearly a million people. Relatedly, in 1874 when
an Indian official spent a relatively generous sum to prevent mass
starvation in Bihar, he was castigated for wasting money. So when
famine struck a few years later, the same official slashed relief
expenditures and availability literally to the bare-bones level. And
even though over a million people died of starvation, the official
was praised for the frugality of his operation. But David Hall
Matthews of Oxford told the conference that things have changed since
those days when the priority of India's rulers was to avoid fiscal
expenditure rather than to avoid deaths. Margi Buchanan-Smith of the
famine-relief organization Actionaid pointed out that early-warning
systems could alert populations to threats of drought, flood and
other natural disasters before they struck.
(Financial Times, 14 September 1995, London)
* * * * *
THE MAYOR OF KYRGYZSTAN'S CAPITAL HAS LAUNCHED A SAFE-SEX
CAMPAIGN to check the upsurge of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
in the Central Asian city of Bishkek. The project, supported by over
US$85,000 provided by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is
aimed at sexually active adults at high risk, notably prostitutes,
long-distance truck drivers and college students. Workshops on STD
prevention and family planning will train doctors and counsellors,
who will staff a newly-established "reproductive health help line"
round-the-clock. The Students Polyclinic and the Medical Education
Center will conduct a survey about students' knowledge of
contraception and STDs to determine their needs. Information and
educational materials on family planning and the prevention of HIV
and STDs will be distributed citywide through clinics. The only
national hospital for STD treatment in the former Soviet republic of
nearly 4 1/2 million inhabitants already is overwhelmed by more
patients than it can accommodate."
(Project News, January 1996, UNFPA, New York)
* * * * *
THE DEMAND FOR CONTRACEPTIVES DISTRIBUTED THROUGH SOCIAL
MARKETING RISES AS THE COST DROPS and vice versa, according to years
of studies conducted in developing countries. A recent report
summing up the studies cites as a classic example the findings in
Bangladesh. In April 1990, a social marketing project raised
contraceptive prices by about 60 percent. In the following year,
condom sales dropped by 29 percent and pill sales fell by 12 percent.
To check the downward trend, the social marketers lowered prices two
years later. After this, sales rose within a few months to the
previous level and have continued to climb. Similar reviews on
condom distribution in 24 social marketing programs confirmed the
Bangladesh conclusion: that there is a significant inverse
correlation between per capita sales and prices.
IRONICALLY, SOCIAL MARKETING PROGRAMS IN THE LOWEST-INCOME
COUNTRIES TEND TO CHARGE THE MOST FOR CONTRACEPTIVES. For example,
projects in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Nigeria and
Zimbabwe charge 3-10 times as much for condoms as do Pakistan,
Bangladesh and India, whose per capita gross national product is
higher than most African countries. That disparity raises concerns
among family planners because the poorest clients--the very ones most
in need of contraceptive supplies and services--are the first to drop
out. Conversely, the four most successful programs--in Bangladesh,
Costa Rica, Jamaica and Pakistan--have very low price structures and
the highest sales: 0.75 condoms per capita. In the seven least
successful programs, where prices averaged more than six times those
of the successful four, condom sales total a meager 0.07 per capita.
Finally, the report's researcher recommended: "When family planning
professionals set prices for contraceptives (and, we believe, for
contraceptive services), the consumer's ability to pay should be the
overriding consideration."
(International Family Planning Perspectives, December 1995, Alan
Guttmacher Institute, New York)
* * * * *
A REVISED STATEMENT ON NORPLANT HAS BEEN ISSUED by the
International Planned Parenthood Federation as an update on the
benefits and risks of using the five-year contraceptive implant.
Clinical studies began in 1975 in seven countries and further trials
have been ongoing in both the developed and developing world. To
date, nearly 30 countries have approved the method. Over 55,000
women have participated in studies in more than 50 countries, and
about 2 million women have routinely used Norplant, a progestogen-
only sub-dermal contraceptive. Many of the most recent conclusions
bear out earlier findings. Norplant, for instance, is confirmed as
a highly effective contraceptive method with a failure rate ranging
from 0.09 percent to 0.2 percent during the first 12 months. During
the remainder of the normal implant period of five years of use, the
failure rate remains at 0.2 percent. However, Norplant's efficacy
decreases after five years, when it should be removed. The most
frequently reported side-effect of the Norplant implants is the
disruption of the menstrual cycle. About 60% of users report
irregular bleeding patterns during the first year. The second most
common complaint is headache, followed by nervousness, nausea,
dizziness, weight gain and hair loss. On the other hand, no
clinically significant changes have been found in liver, kidney,
adrenal or thyroid functions, and Norplant has no effect on blood
pressure and no increased risk of venous thrombosis, the updated
studies find. Norplant is suitable for most women of reproductive
age and it is particularly recommended for most women of reproductive
age who want long-term protection from pregnancy but may want to have
children in the future. The studies show that the return of
fertility is not delayed following implant removal. But in another
caveat, the studies agree that while Norplant is especially important
as pregnancy protection for adolescents, there is a consensus that
for women under 16 years of age, the progestogen-only contraceptive
may have undesirable effects on bone mass and density.
(IPPF Medical Bulletin, October 1995, International Planned
Parenthood Federation, London)
* * * * *
**For information on any articles not accompanied by contact
information, contact Patrice Newman at PCI (address below).**
NGO SUPPLEMENT June 1996
For and About NGOs and their Work
'DECENTRALIZATION' HAS BECOME THE BUZZ WORD FOR UPGRADING FAMILY
PLANNING SERVICES. Around the world, many health ministers and other
decision-makers as well as donors and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) are promoting the new approach to create greater efficiency
and effectiveness. Essentially, the strategy is to transfer
decision-making to the field level to benefit both the clients and
the health providers. Decentralization's benefits and risks make up
the theme of a 26-page issue of The Family Planning Manager, a
periodical dedicated to management strategies for improving family
planning service delivery. The issue covers such elements of
decentralization as management programs, conditions necessary for
success, transference of functions, and assessment of the strategy's
impact. Case studies of decentralization experiences in the
Philippines, Honduras and Bangladesh are also included. The
publication is designed to help managers develop and support delivery
of quality family planning services. Comments, queries or requests
for free subscriptions are available from: The Family Planning
Manager, Family Planning Management Development, Management Science
for Health, 400 Centre Street, Newton, Massachusetts 02158, USA.
Phone: (617) 527-9202. Fax: (617) 965-2208. E-mail:
fpmdpubs@msh.org
* * * * *
A COMPREHENSIVE MANUAL ON A WIDE RANGE OF FAMILY PLANNING ISSUES
has been published by the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins Program for
International Education in Reproductive Health (JHPIEGO). Titled
PocketGuide for Family Planning Service Providers, the manual contains
in its 275 pages a wealth of information for field clinicians in an
easy-to-use format, including a table of contents and index with
corresponding marker tabs for quick reference. Information about all
contraceptive methods is provided, including mechanisms of action,
benefits, limitations, precautions for use, side effects and other
health problems. The guide also contains information on
contraception specifically for women with medical problems and under
special conditions, such as breastfeeding or emergency contraception.
And the manual contains an assessment form on which readers are
invited to grade the usefulness of its information and readability.
The PocketGuide for Family Planning Service Providers, priced at
US$6, is published in French, Spanish and Portuguese as well as in
English. It is available from: JHPIEGO Materials Division, Brown's
Wharf, 1615 Thames Street, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA. Telephone: (410)
955-8558; Fax: (410) 955-6199; Telex: 6849118 or 6849019.
* * * * *
A PROJECT CALLED "THE CHILDREN OF STREET VENDORS" IS BEING RUN
BY AN EL SALVADORAN NGO. F‚ y Alegrˇa, or 'Faith and Happiness,'
works with the children of women who make their living selling goods
on the streets of El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador. Project
staff reach out to mothers through four child development centers--
known as Cindes, for Centro Infantil de Desarrollo--in poor
neighborhoods. According to project director Marisa de Martinez,
most of the children in the program have been physically abused,
often victims of both their mothers' disillusion and misery, and the
violence of street life in a society steeped in war and oppression.
Martinez says that the first Cindes opened in 1989, with the
objective of reaching 75 children under seven years of age. By the
end of the year, 120 children were involved in the program and
Martinez says that the response from the mothers was overwhelming.
Presently, 340 children and their mothers participate in the four
neighborhood centers which provide medical care, food, nutrition
counselling, field trips, and other educational activities. The
Cindes also develop support networks for parents and provide
practical help on income-generating activities.
MOTHERS PAY A SMALL AMOUNT FOR THEIR CHILDREN TO SPEND THE DAY
IN ONE OF THE CINDES, but the cost is lower than the child's food
would cost on the street. The Cindes also hold workshops and
discussion groups for mothers on such topics as young children,
babies' needs, and child development. But mothers' time is often
limited by the long hours required to earn the minimum required to
maintain their families, Martinez says. She notes that the children
who regularly attend one of the Cindes show improved physical and
intellectual development and often go on to succeed in the formal
school system. She also says that the program could serve as an
important model for other community groups in the Latin American
region.
(Bernard van Leer Foundation Newsletter, January 1996, The
Hague, The Netherlands)
* * * * *
IN A SOUTH-TO-SOUTH DEMOGRAPHIC ASSISTANCE PROGRAM,
BHUTANESE HEALTH WORKERS WILL BE SENT for training to other Third
World countries that have been successful in dealing with similar
social problems. The project is part of a U.N. Population Fund
(UNFPA) grant of some US$234,000 in additional financing earmarked
for Bhutan over two years to improve and expand the Himalayan
kingdom's outreach-clinic network. Clinics are the mainstay of
health and family planning services in Bhutan, where 90 percent of
the population lives in the rural hinterlands. In addition to
funding the training program, the UNFPA allocation will be used to
produce and distribute safe-motherhood, family planning and
reproductive-health informational materials to Bhutanese health
workers and volunteers. The grant also will supply family planning
kits to 167 outreach clinics in Bhutan.
(Project News, December 1995, UNFPA, New York)
* * * * *