AGEING AND DECLINING: IS IPPF COPING WITH POPULATION REALITIES?

Date: 13/10/2021

Host

Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP), The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong (FPAHK), Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT). and China Family Planning Association (CFPA)

Summary

For more than 50 years now, global fertility/birthrate is declining.  In many countries, urbanization drives population decline. The current pandemic of COVID 19 has even added to the suppression of population growth as birthrates continue its downtrend, migration was impacted by travel/movement restrictions and life expectancy is lowered due to Covid-related deaths.

This will further add to the challenges we face related to population ageing. Populations in many countries around the world are ageing rapidly. The number of older people is projected to double by 2050, reaching 2 billion. Although ageing is commonly seen as a phenomenon unique to developed countries, populations in less developed countries are also ageing at an increasingly rapid pace.

Ageing and declining fertility present new and complex challenges for health interventions, especially with IPPF whose core business is the provision of sexual and reproductive health care.

In the midst of these important challenges, how should IPPF be coping?  Should these challenges be addressed with new strategies? Who are IPPF’s new clients and what would successful programs look like? 

Registration

https://weareinnovision.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_g9ZaKkniTNatEKJJ8nh-1w

Date

Wednesday 13 October

Time

16:00-17:30 Kuala Lumpur time

Languages

Interpretation will be available in Arabic French, English and Spanish

Introduction by

Yueping Guo, Member of IPPF Board Committee for Strategy, Investment and Policy. Former Core Member of China Youth Network, the largest youth-led volunteer organization in adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in China. Supported by China Family Planning Association, she and her team have supported young people in more than 500 universities to carry out peer education, outreach activities, social campaigns on SRHR. She is 23 years old now and she is pursuing her master degree in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Moderator

Fumie Saito, Director, Global Advocacy at JOICFP (Japanese Organization for International Organization in Family Planning). Formerly the first Asia regional coordinator for PMNCH, a senior policy coordinator for the state minister on Gender Equality and a nationally certified senior legislative aide, Fumie has over 15 years of experience working on public policies and projects in the field of gender equality and SRHR in both national and international settings. Her consulting work includes the development of the International Medical Advisory Panel (IMAP) Statement on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of the Ageing Population (2018). Her publication includes “Women’s empowerment and gender equality in Japan,” in Civil and Political Rights in Japan, Routledge (2019) and “Women and the 2011 East Japan Disaster” in the Journal Gender & Development (2012).　

Keynote Speaker

Professor Rintaro Mori, Regional Adviser for Population Ageing and Sustainable Development at UNFPA Asia Pacific. Professor Mori is Regional Advisor on Population Ageing and Sustainable Development at UNFPA Asia-Pacific Office. After paediatric training in Japan, he practiced in Australia, Nepal and the UK as a senior physician and studied epidemiology/public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine before involved in guideline development for NICE, UK. He has also actively been involved in research/aid-works in Madagascar, Bangladesh and Mongolia, as well as research in health systems and women’s and children’s health at the both national and global level. He was appointed as Director of Department of Health Policy at the National Center for Child Health and Development and Professor in Health Policy for Families and Children at Kyoto University, where he pursed his research on the life-course approach to achieve sustainable social and health care systems in the context of population ageing since 2012, before taking up his current role in 2018.

Roundtable Members

Dr Mona Lam, Executive Director of The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong (FPAHK). Dr Lam is a specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology with 20 years of professional expertise in public hospitals in Hong Kong. She has been the Consultant in-charge of her Department since 2016, polishing her management skills in health administration. She has been devoting her efforts to serving the community and has extensive volunteer experience in collaborating with various non-governmental organizations and professional women groups. 

Mrs. Hong Ping, Commissioner, Deputy Secretary General of China Family Planning Association (CFPA), which is the largest non-governmental organization in population, family planning and reproductive health with extensive network in China, is active in integrating reproductive health with HIV/AIDS prevention, women’s empowerment into community development and anti-poverty efforts, devoting herself in promoting comprehensive adolescent sexual and reproductive health education and youth-friendly services, having organized many international and regional seminars and workshops and responsible for implementation of international programs. The projects conducted under her leadership had been awarded the best practices by UNFPA, UNESCO, ILO and etc.. She practiced the cooperation between Chinese and African NGOs in south-south cooperation assisting local NGOs on peer education in HIV/AIDS prevention and SRHR advocacy in communities. In recent years, she participated the meetings of the UN Human Rights Council and made oral presentations on human rights protection to women, children, the aged and development.

Saneekan Rosamontri, Research and Program Development Manager at Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT). Previously connected with international organizations and agencies including the United Nations in Bangkok doing Advocacy, Partnerships and Resource Mobilization and Communications work.  Saneekan and her team have developed various SRHR-related programs for PPAT, including Response to Ageing Society.

Anna Rotkirch is a research professor and research director at Population Research Institute at Väestöliitto, the Family Federation of Finland. A family sociologist and demographer, she has published extensively on sexual behaviour, family relations, and childbearing and fertility incentives in Finland and Europe. Her several books in English include “Fertility rates and population decline: No time for children?”. Väestöliitto is a large NGO supporting young people, couples and families across the lifespan and promoting sexual and reproductive rights. In 2021, Väestöliitto’s lates population policy programme “Sustainable population Development in Finland” appeared in English. The same year, Rotkirch prepared a demographic report for PM Sanna Marin’s government, on the basis of which the Finnish government adopting new population policy guidelines, including better support for people to achieve their desired family size, and leading to interviews with the BBC, Financial Times, and the South China Morning Post among others.