Health
Population, health and environment, Madagascar
Madagascar, amongst the ‘hottest of the hot’ global biodiversity hotspots, exhibits exceptional concentrations of endemic species gravely threatened by devastating loss of habitat.
The country also has one of the world’s fastest growing populations, with an average fertility rate of over 5 births per woman and nearly half of the country’s population currently under fifteen years of age. Only one in five women in union has access to contraception despite government programmes to promote family planning.
In the remote coastal regions where Blue Ventures operates, access to sexual and reproductive health services is even more difficult. As a result, some girls as young as eleven have had children, and women are having up to 16 children. Infant and maternal mortality figures are high. The rapid growth of coastal populations, whose doubling time is approximately 10-15 years, poses a severe threat to the future sustainability of the country’s extensive coral reefs and other marine habitats, upon which the livelihoods, culture and future economic wellbeing of coastal communities depend.
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Blue Ventures recognises the links between public and environmental health and is directly addressing these challenges through an integrated Population, Health and Environment (PHE) initiative with fishing communities, where a huge unmet demand for sexual and reproductive health services has been identified.
Working in close partnership with regional health institutions and sexual and reproductive health NGOs, this initiative aims to empower and enable individuals to make their own reproductive health choices, and protect themselves against STIs. It is doing this through the provision of sexual and reproductive health services in 24 villages along the south coast of Madagascar. This clinical service is supported by a programme of community education, which draws upon social marketing techniques to raise awareness, enabling individuals to make their own reproductive health choices. The educational interventions used include the use of community theatre, sporting and cultural events, peer-led education and promotional merchandising. As well as proving highly effective, these have been very popular with local communities.
First launched in 2007, Blue Ventures’ sexual and reproductive health initiative has been integrated into BV’s diverse field-based conservation programmes. By developing reproductive health programmes in parallel with existing conservation efforts, the project benefits from established working partnerships and relationships between communities and NGO representatives.
This pioneering, integrated approach to conservation and sexual and reproductive health offers opportunities for these different interventions to work synergistically, enabling far more effective achievement of the projects' objectives than could be achieved if these projects were carried out in isolation.
More information about this programme can be found in the project updates and reports below.
I think your project is just wonderful: it's straightforward and hugely effective. You have a chance to change the fate of those suffering from these diseases in Madagascar. I send you all the good luck wishes and kindest thoughts. You are going to have a remarkable effect and will save many lives, and I couldn't admire you more.
Warmest good wishes, Joanna Lumley.
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Health in the news!
Strides in the Right Direction (International Lifestyle Magazine)
Madagascar tackles its family planning crisis (People & Planet)Ambitious family planning goals (IRIN)
Family Planning at the Frontier (Optimum Population Trust)
Pressure Point (International Lifestyle Magazine)
Interview with Dr Vik Mohan (James Lovelock: a hitchhiker's guide to Gaia)
