This brief summarizes a study conducted in the Philippines by Pollnac and Dacanay in 2011, which assessed the benefits of the Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) project, an integrated population and environment (PE) project implemented by PATH Foundation Philippines Inc.(PFPI)  in the Visayan region of the Philippines.

This report describes the results of an evaluation conducted from August to December 2007 in review of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) PHE (Population, Health and Environment) projects sponsored by Johnson & Johnson and USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development). The PHE sites are located in Africa and Asia, where the human-environment penumbra is in constant flux, where human populations swell most rapidly, suffer most desperately, depend most directly on and affect most profoundly some of the richest forest and marine ecosystems on Earth.

In an effort to compare the benefits of an integrated project with a singe-sector one, World Neighbors started a partnership with CEMOPLAF (Center for Medical Guidance and Family Planning) to implement two different delivery strategies in 12 communities in Bolivar Province, Ecuador. Half of the communities participated in “health only” projects, while the other half in “integrated” approaches. The health only approaches mostly focused on oral contraceptive and condom use through community-based distributors.

  CBNRM specialists initiated the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations (NACSO) as an umbrella organization of non-governmental organizations (NGO) supporting CBNRM. NACSO works by building the capacity of focal persons, training peer educators within member organizations, developing HIV/AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) policies, and initiating mainstreaming activities – in conjunction with Namibia’s national prevention strategy.  

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, Egypt, laid out in its Programme of Action an impressive and ambitious set of goals for improving sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) all over the world, by the target date of 2015 (International Conference on Population and Development 1994). One of these goals was the provision of universal access to a full range of safe and reliable family -planning methods.

This issue of the BALANCED Project newsletter examines how PHE approaches contribute to the acheivement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with a focus on gender, maternal and child health and environmental sustainability. The introductory article sets the international policy context concerning the importance of integrated health, development and conservation inititatives.

The Population-Health-Environment (PHE) Alliance Project, implemented by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from 2008 to 2011, with support from the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health and Johnson & Johnson, aimed to change that practice, and by doing so, deepen the sector’s understanding of the value of the PHE approach for conservation, and how the sector could better measure that value.

The Population-Health-Environment (PHE) Alliance Project, implemented by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from 2008 to 2011, with support from the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health and Johnson & Johnson, aimed to change that practice, and by doing so, deepen the sector’s understanding of the value of the PHE approach for conservation,and how the sector could better measure that value.

This policy brief explores the complex relationship between population dynamics and economic development in developing countries. When populations transition from high mortality and fertility rates to longer life expectancies and smaller family size, this is known as the demographic dividend. The brief expains how, during this transition phase, possible economic benefits are significant. Finally, the authors make recommendations for policy changes to increase investments in family planning and reproductive health, girls' education and economic development for youth.

Conservation organizations have integrated family planning into site-based conservation activities in selected countries for almost two decades yet lacked strong evidence of the approach’s value to conservation. Today this approach has come to be known as the integrated “population, health and environment” approach, or “PHE.” Drawing on lessons from early integrated conservation and development projects (known as ICDPs), PHE projects aimed to be more targeted yet still integrated.

As part of its global Population-Health-Environment (PHE) Alliance from 2008 to 2011, World Wildlife Fund-US undertook a PHE learning agenda, with the support of USAID and Johnson & Johnson. This WWF-Nepal case study was produced by gender consultant Nancy Diamond to explore the impact of PHE activities of the WWF-Nepal Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) Project on women’s empowerment to inform the global PHE community.

This report documents the process through which a Ugandan conservation organization,Conservation through Public Health (CTPH), successfully integrated interventions -traditionally seen as from different “domains” or “sectors”—for the dual purposes of i) reducing threats to mountain gorillas and their habitat and ii) improving the well-being of local communitiesdirectly dependent upon the health of the former (for ecotourism and natural resourceuse). John Snow Inc. (JSI), with the U.S.

Proponents of integrated development face significant barriers, but the tide may be turning. To fully harness this momentum, Gib Clarke argues that the population-health-environment (PHE) community must solidify its research base, reach out to new partners, and push for flexible funding and programming. In addition, he writes that PHE programs should add livelihoods as a critical element, and consider adopting a new moniker, "HELP"—Health, Environment, Livelihoods, and Population.

Population, Health, and Environment(PHE) integrated projects are a part of this new generation. These projects not only aim to achieve goals in these fields, but to better understand the effects of these integrated approaches. Conservation International (CI) combined their extensive experience designing and implementing conservation projects, with the new understanding of the effects of integrated projects to create more valuable PHE projects. The idea in these projects was to reduce population pressures on biodiversity hotspots.

USAID‘s Bureau of Global Health‘s Office of Population and Reproductive Health (PRH) has moved from funding a small, disparate set of activities initiated as early as the late 1980s (for example, the Michigan Population-Environment (PE) Fellows program) to financing a more substantial portfolio of PE, and later PHE, projects subsumed within an explicit PRH/PHE strategy.

In 2005, USAID supported integrated population, health and environment (PHE) programs in several countries around the world including Madagascar, Guatemala, Cambodia, the Philippines, Kenya, and Tanzania. PHE integration is based on the recognition that the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity cannot be achieved without also addressing the needs of populations whose livelihoods depend on the use of natural resources. 

This report summarizes a the results of a five-year population, health, and environment (PHE) program in three environmental corridors and threatened ecosystems in Madagascar. The activity was implemented by the Environmental Health Project (EHP) on behalf of USAID to “determine if activities implemented in an integrated manner achieved better results than if the activities were implemented separately.” The purpose of the PHE programs is to target sector-specific projects to foster greater collaboration and amplify the integration of the activities to a more efficient level.

This assessment examines 11 field projects and 45 field sites, evaluating the “first generation” of PE and PHE field projects. In addition to the traditional program evaluation topics—whether the program funds were used well and the projects successful and sustainable— the authors also tried to answer the major underlying questions raised by critics of PE/PHE programs: Do integrated PE/PHE projects have better results than “stand-alone” population and “standalone” environment projects?

 

The Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) initiative was created by PATH Foundation Philippines Inc. in response to an overwhelming need for family planning (FP) and reproductive health (RH) assistance in biodiversity hotspots in the coastal Philippines. In reflection of the IPOPCORM initiative a Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) system was put into place. The Behavioral Monitoring Survey (BMS) was the M&E framework created for the IPOPCORM efforts to find a way to quantitatively measure the work accomplished.

In June of 2002 the David and Lucile Packard Foundation commissioned a report reviewing population and environment (PE) funding. This report addressed how much funding was currently being invested in PE, if PE was receiving increasing or decreasing attention from donors, and how these donors were defining and prioritizing PE. While there have always been many difficulties and struggles with integrated PE initiatives, this report discusses the effectiveness and necessity for taking this approach, and how the need for this approach, and its difficulties have influenced funding.