Population Dynamics
As of the year 2011, seven billion people now live on Earth. Much has to be done in order to reduce poverty, to provide universal access to health care and family planning, and to decrease our high consumption of resources. This is where DSW steps in with its development programmes and advocacy work.
Many women give birth to more children than they want due to a lack of contraceptives and effective family planning. With the implementation of our Youth-to-Youth Initiative, we are educating thousands of young people in Africa about their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and on how to create a healthy and independent future for themselves.
Furthermore, DSW's comprehensive advocacy work is done by talking to and engaging with national, local and international political authorities. In our dialogue we advocate for the necessity of voluntary family planning and reproductive health.
DSW Berlin: Commitment for Voluntary Family Planning
- Bild: twicepix, CC-Lizenz BY-NC-SA 2.0
DSW is committed to enabling people in developing countries to assert their sexual and reproductive rights. It is still a fact that many women in these countries have more children than they would actually like to have. Access to information and to a broad range of modern family planning methods is a prerequisite for women in developing countries to take a free decision about the best time to have a child and the number of children they would like to have. Adolescents in developing countries are an important target group within DSW's project work. They are the parents of tomorrow. Their family planning decisions will shape the future of their country. This is why it is so important to empower young people to take informed decisions on family planning and thus exercise their reproductive rights.
Population dynamics as a cross-cutting issue
The demographic development of a country greatly influences its overall development. This is why it is important for us to highlight the impact of population dynamics in relation to economic, social and environmental development. The question of how many people will live in a country in the future also determines whether there will be sufficient resources for all, whether there will be enough food and whether the state will be able to provide basic education and social security for everyone. In our dialogue with decision-makers we therefore advocate that the impact of population dynamics, and thus the necessity of voluntary family planning, should be considered in the context of the various development topics.
In Germany we are in constant contact mainly with the German Federal Ministry for Co-operation and Development (BMZ) and the German implementing agencies, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and KfW Development Bank. Within our All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on SRHR, the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, we maintain a close exchange with members of the German Bundestag. Within this framework, we organize talks with international experts and events such as the annual International Dialogue on Population and Sustainable Development. Together with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) and the Policy Planning Unit of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs we regularly organize informal expert talks on current topics related to global population development.
One current example is the public relations campaign "Africa's Demographic Challenges" which we are conducting with our European partners. In this connection, a scientific study will be compiled and then discussed in October 2011 within the framework of an international conference organized by DSW in co-operation with KfW Development Bank. At international level, we have several times participated in the UN Commission on Population and Development (CPD) as a member of the German delegation.
In close consultation with our East African country offices and based on the experiences from our own development projects we always keep track of local needs.
