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POPULATION Policy Brief REFERENCE BUREAU AUGUST 2015 BY JASON BREMNER, KRISTEN P. PATTERSON BUILDING RESILIENCE THROUGH FAMILY AND RACHEL YAVINSKY PLANNING: A TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACH FOR WOMEN, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES In many developing countries, chronic poverty, repeated economic and environmental shocks, and poor health—including lack of access to and use BOX $24.5 of modern contraceptives—contribute to recurring cycles of crisis. Extreme weather events tied to Resilience Has BILLION climate change are increasingly threatening people’s Many Definitions property, livelihoods, and lives. To break these The amount spent on international humanitarian cycles, governments and development partners are The United States Agency for International response in 2014. creating strategies to reduce vulnerability and build Development (USAID)’s 2012 resilience policy resilience—the ability of individuals, households, and program guidance defines resilience as communities, institutions, and ecosystems to “the ability of people, households, communities, withstand crises, recover from them, and adapt so countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, as to better endure them in the future.1 and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and The powerful combination Researchers and development practitioners from facilitates inclusive growth.”1 of family planning and diverse fields are studying resilience to better keeping girls in school understand different responses to crises (see Box). The Rockefeller Foundation defines resilience enables young women Research suggests that women are critical to building to make positive choices as “the capacity of individuals, communities and about their own health resilience and should be at the center of resilience systems to survive, adapt, and grow in the face and future. programs.2 However, the contribution of family of stress and shocks, and even transform when planning and reproductive health to the resilience conditions require it. Building resilience is about of women, their families, and communities is largely making people, communities and systems better unexplored in resilience research.3 Some evidence prepared to withstand catastrophic events—both suggests that family planning may be transformative natural and manmade—and able to bounce back in changing people’s ability at multiple levels to adapt more quickly and emerge stronger from these 2 to climate change and break cycles of crisis.4 shocks and stresses.” 300 This policy brief explores the connections between While there is no standard definition, resilience women, their access to family planning, population, efforts share a commitment to helping people, MILLION and resilience, and makes the case that investments communities, institutions, and governments avoid The 2050 projected that aim to improve women’s access to rights-based recurring crises by building local adaptive capacity population of the Sahel. voluntary family planning are critical to building and reducing vulnerability to risk of impacts. resilience. This brief aims to help health, climate 1 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), change, and development practitioners who focus Building Resilience to Recurrent Crisis: USAID Policy and on resilience better understand and communicate Program Guidance (Washington, DC: USAID, 2012). these connections in order to embrace and promote 2 The Rockefeller Foundation, “Resilience,” accessed at family planning as a local, national, and global www.rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/topics/resilience/, on Aug. 12, 2015. development priority. Social Sector Investments Are Needed humanitarian response, with $19 billion provided From 2000 to 2009, more than 2 billion people directly by governments and another $6 billion by worldwide were affected by disasters requiring private contributors. Sixty-six percent of this official national and international humanitarian assistance, humanitarian assistance went to countries suffering close to 840,000 lives were lost, and estimates of protracted crises and categorized as ‘long-term the economic damage surpassed $890 billion.5 recipients,’ meaning they regularly receive a high In 2014, international donors spent $24.5 billion on share of humanitarian assistance year after year.6 The Horn of Africa is one region that receives a great deal of on women and girls is essential for achieving lasting results. humanitarian assistance. In 2011, drought and conflict plunged Approaches to building resilience must systematically reduce more than 13 million people into crisis in the Horn of Africa. The key gender gaps and ensure that women are given the tools, impact of the crisis, however, was different across the different resources, and opportunities to participate and lead. countries of the Horn, and shows the importance of social sector investments (health and education) as well as transparent How Does Family Planning governance for building resilience. In Somalia the drought in combination with the protracted civil conflict led to a food security Contribute to Women’s Resilience? crisis that killed an estimated 258,000 people and resulted in To increase resilience, households and communities need both a great exodus from the most affected areas, leaving more than adaptive capacity—the ability to quickly and effectively respond 1 million people internally displaced and another 1 million Somali to new circumstances—and the ability to reduce vulnerability and refugees crossing into other countries.7 the risk of impacts.11 There are many different ways to increase Elsewhere in the Horn, Ethiopia and Kenya were severely affected adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability and risk, but since by the same drought and famine, but were better able to respond women are important actors in building resilience, a critical and cope with the crisis. Both Ethiopia and Kenya are among question that health, development, and resilience advocates the largest recipients of official development assistance from and practitioners need to answer is “How does voluntary family international donors, much of which is spent on nonemergency planning contribute to women’s adaptive capacity and their ability assistance such as social and health programs that aim to address to reduce their individual and household’s risk of impacts?” the root causes of vulnerability. In contrast, in Somalia, people The use of family planning can reduce unintended pregnancies were already more vulnerable to disaster at the onset of the and allow for healthier timing and spacing of pregnancies. Forty drought, largely because of the absence of government services percent of the 213 million pregnancies that occurred worldwide and lack of investment in development and safety nets.8 in 2012 (85 million) were unintended. Fifty percent of these Increasingly, development partners are looking at situations unintended pregnancies ended in abortion and 38 percent ended 12 like the recurring droughts in the Horn of Africa as well as in the in an unplanned birth. Research has proven that avoiding Sahel region, and aiming to build resilience and address the unintended and closely spaced pregnancies results in better root causes of crises. USAID’s Policy and Program Guidance, health and less morbidity and mortality for both mothers and 13 “Building Resilience to Recurrent Crisis,” developed in 2012, and their children. In addition, research has established a number the United Kingdom Department for International Development’s of social and economic consequences as women recover from Humanitarian Policy, “Saving Lives, Preventing Suffering, unintended pregnancies and, particularly, unsafe abortions. and Building Resilience,” published in 2011, established the Women cannot fulfill other responsibilities such as making a common objective of improving resilience across all development living, attending school, and caring for their families, and the and humanitarian programs in all countries where they work. death of a mother during childbirth or because of an unsafe 14 Governments are also developing resilience strategies, such abortion can quickly plunge a household into crisis. as Ethiopia’s Climate-Resilient Green Economy strategy, and Women who avoid unintended pregnancy and its consequences recognizing the importance of social sector investments in health are more likely to have the time and energy to actively and education as components of building resiliency. participate in livelihoods and the labor force, and are able to increase their resilience by learning new ways to adapt their Investments in Women and Girls livelihoods and reduce risks from natural disasters, climate change, or other unforeseen circumstances. Similarly, healthier Are Critical children place less of a care burden on mothers, thus freeing When disasters occur in low-resource settings, women and them to spend time increasing their own adaptive capacity children often bear the heaviest burden. Natural disasters and reducing risk. Evidence from Bangladesh, for example, disproportionately kill women and children, such as in the Asian suggests that women who consistently have better access tsunami of 2004, where survival was much higher among men to strong family planning programs are more likely to work than women; and recent episodes of severe food shortages in the outside the home, and their households accumulate greater Horn of Africa drought, where children were disproportionately wealth.15 Resilience experts recognize that having multiple