The drivers of extreme poverty, poor health, gender inequality, food insecurity, population pressures,
unsustainable natural resource use and biodiversity loss are interconnected and often coexist, acting
synergistically to adversely affect one another. At
tempts to address these issues are likely to be more
effective if they acknowledge this interconnectedness, and take a whole system approach to the challenge of
sustainable development, by harmonising social, economic and environmental concerns.
Integrate
d Population, Health and Environment (PHE) programmes attempt to do just this. By taking a more
holistic approach to address biodiversity conservation, livelihoods and health needs, including sexual and
reproductive health and rights and lack of access to
modern contraceptives, in an integrated way, PHE
programmes are able to reverse this vicious cycle. This multi sectoral integrated approach can yield cost
efficiencies through the sharing of resources, information and opportunities, and lead to more effect
ive and
sustained outcomes than traditional single sector approaches. The inclusion of reproductive health and rights
-
based family planning components in PHE programmes has led to much needed improvements in
women’s health, with resulting advancements in g
ender equity, greater participation of women in natural
resource management, greater involvement of men in family planning, strengthened livelihoods and
increased community resilience.
This pa
per seeks to increase understanding of
the potential role of
this approach
to drive progress towards
a
number of sustainable development related goals and issues
,
including
in relation to biodiversity
conservation, poverty alleviation, population dynamics, reproductive health, youth and community
empowerment and gen
der equity. Coordinated by the Population and Sustainable Development Alliance, the
conference
panel
and paper
bring
s
together PHE opinion leaders from policy through to implementation,
featuring both new, and some of the world’s most well established, PHE
programmes. The first four
sections
of this paper
showcase implementation of the PHE approach in a variety of environments and ecosystems
around the world, including in coastal/marine areas, around freshwater lakes, in protected areas and in
forests
. The
far
-
reaching benefits
these interventions have
brought to the heath of communities and the
ecosystems upon which they
depend
in the Philippines, Malawi, Madagascar and Ethiopia are set out, with
discussion of how these
programmes have been implemented and
scaled up. This diversity of programmes
demonstrates
the breadth of settings in which PHE can be applied,
and the potential that exists for wider
replication
. The final
section
provide
s
a global overview
o
f
PHE, what the evidence tells us,
and sets out
bot
h the challenges and opportunities that remain for replication.
The Population and Sustainable
Development Alliance
believes
that i
ntegrated PHE approaches have an essential role to play in driving
progress towards Sustainable Development Goals. Within th
e context of the Post
-
2015 international
development agenda policy makers, donors, academic institutions and other stakeholders must seize the
opportunities
and synergies
th
at th
is approach offers to advance sustainable development through addressing
the c
ritical
interrelationships
between population dynamics, human health and the environment.