This paper reviews 41 National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) submitted by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and identifies the range of interventions included in countries’ priority adaptation actions. The review found near-universal recognition among the NAPAs of the importance of population considerations as a central pillar in climate change adaptation.

This Population Action International Working Paper analyzes the five principles of aid effectiveness- country ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results, and mutual accountability-from a family planning and reproductive health perspective. It also describes how the Paris Declaration has changed the ways of managing and delivering aid; highlights entry points and obstacles for champions working to improve funding and policies; and makes recommendations for civil society organizations, governments and donors.

Studies of vulnerability and resilience have multiplied with the growing realization that societal response, particularly societal capacity to adapt to climate change impacts, determines both the severity of impacts and the costs of adaptation. Although research in vulnerability and resilience began by emphasizing vulnerability, the focus has shifted at least in part to resilience as a positive concept that can be more integrated with general development goals.

Population Action International’s latest working paper, Projecting Population, Projecting Climate Change: Population in IPCC Scenarios, shows that population growth is not adequately accounted for in the emissions scenarios produced by the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is the second in a three part series that explores role of population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Population growth is one of the driving forces behind the growth of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, along with economic growth and technological change. Rapid population growth also hinders socioeconomic development and increases human vulnerability to the devastating impacts of climate change. Population Action International’s new working paper “How Do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?” is the first in a three-part series that will deepen understanding of the relationships between population and climate change.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report recognized climate change as a global issue with the potential for catastrophic environmental effects. Likewise, by the late 1980s HIV/AIDS was identified as an undeniable pandemic that would affect all countries. The similarities between climate change and HIV/AIDS extend beyond the global nature of these issues, though. Both have complex etiologies, the scientific bases of which are difficult to translate to the general public, and neither is fully understood, even by experts in their respective fields.

Few outsiders are likely aware of the stagnation of Pakistan's family planning program, which provides key services and affects the country's larger demographic trajectory....Pakistan was among the vanguard countries in Asia in starting a family planning program more than five decades ago, with intermittent support from international donors including the United States. Yet fertility has declined more slowly in Pakistan than in most other Asian countries.

Over the last two years, the architecture of U.S. foreign assistance has undergone an unprecedented restructuring. At the same time, a congressionally-mandated commission on poverty-focused development has issued its report; a Senate staff delegation has conducted an extensive overseas fact-finding mission; and numerous nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, and presidential campaigns have issued policy prescriptions on the future of U.S. foreign aid. In all of these efforts, insufficient attention has been paid to the implications of actual and proposed changes in the U.S. foreign assistance program to the future priority and funding of family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) care overseas-highly successful and cost-effective programs that have received U.S. government funding since the 1960s.

Country stakeholders  governments, parliamentarians and civil society  have always been challenged by a limited ability to influence decisions made at the international level. With international donors now seeking to move decision-making and ownership to the country level, we have a remarkable opportunity to establish a transparent, participatory and inclusive process. This is particularly critical to the SRHR community which, due to the often controversial nature of the work, requires institutionalized processes as well as strong, well-informed champions, to ensure that its concerns are adequately funded in development strategies.

Weak infrastructure and limited distribution systems in low-income countries complicate access to health services, especially in rural areas. Government health outlets may be relatively few and widely dispersed, and private-sector sources often favor wealthier urban areas, resulting in uneven service availability within a country. In the absence of a solid heath infrastructure, strengthening primary health care and innovative community-based health service delivery systems help provide more equitable access to health services.