World Bank may target family planning

[seasat]

Source: LA Times

WASHINGTON — Under beleaguered President Paul D. Wolfowitz, the World Bank may be scaling back its long-standing support for family planning, which many countries consider essential to women's health and the fight against AIDS.

In an internal e-mail, the bank's team leader for Madagascar indicated that one of two managing directors appointed by Wolfowitz ordered the removal of all references to family planning from a document laying out strategy for the African nation. And a draft of the bank's long-term health program strategy overseen by the same official makes almost no mention of family planning, suggesting a wider rollback may be underway.

The World Bank has traditionally championed birth control and other methods of family planning as a key strategy to improve women's health and economic status.

The controversy has raised worries among some bank officials and health advocates that the Bush administration's conservative stance on family planning issues may be seeping into the institution.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-worldbank19apr19,1,1317976.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

---

Here's the other Wolfowitz scandal. I'll bet that more Shrub Inc influence comes to light as more of the spotlight focuses on Wolfowitz's leadership at the bank. It's bad enough that they try to dismantle family planning services here but to do it to impoverished countries suffering under overpopulation without enough resources to feed their citizens is criminal.

[tanyev]

1. Time to change the lock on his office door, deactivate his swipe card,

and post his photo at the security guard's desk.

What more is it going to take?

:grr:

[ck4829]

2. Great work there, Wolfie. You get caught in a scandal, and now you want to punish poor women...

Because of it.

Real nice. :sarcasm:

[Maat]

3. This attack on family planning began ..

as soon as DimSon hit the Whitehouse door.

I'm a member of NARAL, and have, sadly, been told about it for six years now.

This is DimSon and Co. kissing the Religious Right's hiney.

It is high time Wolfie was shown the door!

Most ironically, if it happens, it will probably be because of the little scandal involving his girlfriend, and not because the Warmongering, Whoring Little A**hole pushed the Iraq War and wound up causing hundreds of thousands of people to be killed!

[MadMaddie]

4. Wolfie is in his last throes .....he doesn't have long left and he

wants to push the * cabal agenda and religion down the worlds poorest countries throats....

[ninkasi]

5. Nothing says "compassionate conservatism"

Like ensuring that poverty stricken women in poverty stricken countries are denied the ability to limit the number of children they will give birth to, only to lose to starvation later. Oh, and there is also the added benefit of condemning countless women to death and disability, due to the unsanitary practices giving birth to in countries where the women can't afford medical attention, or proper nutrition during pregnancy.
Yep, there's nothing like "compassionate conservatives" imposing their own mean-spirited, narrow minded, bigoted opinions on poor women. It's a Republic tradition, much like corrupt government.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Arrgh. Family planning support is one of the best forms of aid the developed world can give

Not tied, but just with no strings attached, so every individual (meaning basically every woman, in practice) can use it if they want. Because overpopulation is the fundamental problem in global warming, water distribution, famine and poverty. A example from a couple of days ago:

With a population of 150 million, Bangladesh is the world's most densely populated country. A series of straddling deltas of some of the world's biggest rivers, Bangladesh is at risk not only from rising sea levels, but the increased flow of water caused by more rain and glacial melt from the Himalayas. At this rate of flooding and erosion, 20 per cent of Bangladesh could be under water by 2100. All this despite the average Bangladeshi using just one tenth of the carbon emissions of any European, and one 25th of the average citizen of the United States.

And the people whose lives are most catastrophically affected by this flooding and erosion are, inevitably, the poorest and most vulnerable. As Nazmul Chadhury, of the UK's Practical Action, says: "Forget about making poverty history; climate change will make poverty permanent.'' Climate change may not immediately cause life-threatening catastrophe for the very poor and vulnerable, but when you visit Shamola and her neighbours on the island of Aralia you see that they are, statistically, inextricably linked.

Shamola lives with her remaining five children, all under 12, in her aunt's one-room house. The room measures about two by four metres, and it's impossible to imagine what feat of geometry enables five children and three adults to sleep here at night. But somehow they do. Shamola's mother, Aysha Begum, says that the island was once a good place for a family. "There was no poverty or hunger," she says. "We were healthy and strong. We ate milk and butter."

Everything began to change about 20 years ago, after the l988 flood virtually wiped out the entire population of the island. Then, in 2004, many people who had rebuilt their lives on the island lost their homes. "That's where our house used to be," says Shamola, pointing into the muddy waters, quite close to the mangrove swamp where her son is buried. In the past 20 years, she adds, the flooding has become more extreme and the island was continually eroded. At the same time, sickness has increased among the old and young. Poor diet is one reason for the increased sickness; a sanitation system collapsing under the numbers who use it is another. The islanders use "hanging" toilets, perilous contraptions made from bamboo which hang from the backs of houses, like "long drops", over the water's edge. Cholera, typhoid, severe gastric problems, conjunctivitis, blindness and stunted growth are some of the many health problems derived from malnutrition and appalling sanitation.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2458848.ece

The island is now just 30 metres by 1 km, but 4,000 people live on it. But they've nowhere else to go. Bangladesh has half the population of the US, in an area the size of Iowa - and that is shifting, and shrinking. It really pisses me off when someone (always a white European or American) moans about the 'demographic time bomb' in Europe, and how Europe needs to encourage more babies. The world is awash with people - they're the one thing we have no shortage of at all.

[Robbien]

7. The headline is the exact opposite of what the story says.

The World Bank isn't targeting family planning, it is killing it. Dropping it all together.