United Nations, New York
June 14-15, 2010

Respondent Statement by Dr. Jacqueline Sharpe, President International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)

Thematic Session 3: Sustaining development and withstanding crises

• Adapting to climate change will involve many different types of responses, including policies to improve the management of climate risks.  However we must also ensure that we invest in women.
• Decades of research confirm that a health system that delivers reproductive health care to girls and women throughout their life cycle is a strong system that delivers for everyone.
• A woman’s poor health often pushes her family further into poverty.  Her productivity falls, family income nutrition and care-giving are compromised and her children will suffer as they may be taken out of school.
• Women’s unpaid work comprises one third of the world’s GNP. And the impact of maternal mortality on the global economy has been estimated to be US$15 billion in annual productivity loss.
• Investing in women’s health leads to social and economic gains to higher educational attainments of women higher labor productivity and greater involvement of women in their communities; these benefits lead to greater household income and significant poverty reduction.
• Reducing unwanted pregnancies in young women and girls would allow them to stay in school and work, raising their productivity and status
• When a woman dies from pregnancy related causes her children have a 50% chance of dying.  Saving mothers saves children’s lives.
• The World Health Organization reports that family planning and skilled prenatal and delivery care are among the six most cost effective health interventions possible in low resource countries.
• For each dollar spent on modern contraceptives saves $1.40 in medical costs.   Modern contraceptives are life changing and world changing
• In situations of crisis such as climate disasters, conflict, forced migration and internal displacement of populations, women and girls continue to need reproductive health services.   In fact these needs increase.   Women and girls in humanitarian settings are at increased risk of rape, HIV transmission, unwanted pregnancies, maternal death due to unassisted deliveries and unsafe abortion.  Women and girls make up 75 to 80% of populations displaced by crises.
• IPPF has responded to these situations by developing an initiative for providing sexual and reproductive health services in crisis and post crisis situations called the SPRINT Initiative, supported by funding from AUSAID it is the first of its kind in the world. 
• SPRINT works to build capacity of local actors to coordinate and implement priority sexual and reproductive health [SRH] services in humanitarian settings by training humanitarian and health workers, helping them to advocate for integration of SRH in national emergency preparedness plans and providing technical assistance when a crisis strikes.   The initiative is currently in operation in some countries in two of our regions and IPPF is seeking to scale up its work to systematically integrate SRH into humanitarian response.
• Letting women and men decide when and if to have children and how many, tends to decrease family size , this saves on public spending on health water sanitation and decreases pressure on natural resources which is vital during times of crisis.
• The burden of climate change is falling disproportionately on poor women in developing countries; we know what interventions will work to save the lives of women and children.  Let us ensure that the world invests in these interventions.   When women benefit, the world benefits.