The INFO Project Blog

Our favorite data dramatist Hans Rosling, who we saw present at the MEASURE Evaluation Symposium last month, gave the world (with two other Swedes) the Gapminder tool, which animates potentially dry data into cartoon-like bubbles that shift over time like an effervescent beverage. Bubbles can signify (as with the map at right) country populations, correlated with Gross National Per Capita income and child mortality. China and India are the big red blobs, with most European countries at upper right in orange.

Now Google, which purchased Gapminder, has made this tool available on Google Spreadsheets.

Kurt Voelker of Forum One whipped up a nifty presentation on Web site traffic for their Influence blog.

Now, create your own snazzy statistical show. Go, go gadget.

The connection between family planning and reducing environmental degradation, like the impact of global warming, is becoming more emphasized, for example in the meeting series by the Environmental Change and Security Program (we blogged about a recent talk).

Rachel Nugent, Senior Health Program Associate at the Center for Global Development, writes in a recent blog post about an Op-Ed in the New York Times on consumption differences between rich and poor countries as a factor responsible for “our global sustainability crisis.”

Nugent wisely points out on the CGD blog that,

we won’t come close to solving global warming, or broader issues of resource sustainability, if we don’t address both numbers of people and consumption levels. The number of people in the world (and their distribution and ages) affect overall consumption directly; and through a variety of indirect channels, affect other economic outcomes that have a bearing on sustainability. This includes GDP (with links to population through labor supply, savings, and human capital investment) and its distribution.

Read the rest of this entry »

Experimenting with the Clusty.com search features (it searches blogs, wikipedia, and images as well as the Web) I stumbled upon an NPR broadcast on pending PEPFAR legislation in Congress.

A global health aid package worth tens of billions of dollars is being debated in the House of Representatives this week. Among the items under consideration is whether to integrate money for family planning into AIDS prevention efforts.

NPR’s Brenda Wilson reports that the proposal to integrate reproductive health services such as family planning into HIV prevention efforts is sometimes controversial with faith-based aid organizations such as the Catholic Relief Services.

Studies have shown that integrating these kind of services with HIV prevention and treatment takes careful strategy and execution. Intregration can save money and it can save lives, for example, by averting missed opportunities to counsel women about family planning.

The INFO Project culls the latest resources on integrating sexual and reproductive health services with HIV and puts everything online here. Stay tuned for the quarterly newsletter, with the latest on male circumcision, female-controlled FP methods such as microbicides, and other hot topics.

Until recently, the topic of population was not frequently associated with addressing climate change. Now, thanks to collaborative efforts from experts in both fields, the world is beginning to recognize that reducing unmet need for contraception not only helps women to prevent unintended pregnancies, it can also can have a positive impact on the environment.

On February 20, fellow INFO staffer Vanessa Mitchell and I attended the panel discussion, “Population and Climate Change: Relationships, Research, and Responses” at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. This event featured Brian O’Neill, scientist at the Institute for the Study of Society and the Environment, and Joseph Speidel, adjunct professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at UCSF. (Dr. Speidel has a long history with INFO. He played a key role in creating the INFO Project’s precursor, the Population Information Program, and is a faithful reviewer of Population Reports. He also serves on INFO’s Editorial Advisory Committee.) The discussion marked the launch of a year-long meeting series sponsored by the Environmental Change and Security Program on population-health-environment issues.

Dr. O’Neill’s talk focused on the correlation between population size and emissions, noting that aging and urbanization may significantly affect the outlook for future emissions. He also points out that long-term climate change goals may be less costly if we are not facing a population boom. Read the rest of this entry »