Family Planning in Kenya: Insights from the Field

(This post is contributed by a lady who has donated many months of her time to help rural Kenyans cope with HIV/AIDS.)

Family planning and population control in Kenya deserves critical attention; it is a country whose population, despite being impacted by HIV/Aids, lack of health care and proper nutrition, is growing by 2.75% per year. In 1900 the population in Kenya was 1,352,000. By 2008 the population was 37,000,000. By 2050, Kenya’s population is projected to reach 65,200,000. Today, 32% of Kenyans are malnourished. Drought and climate change are reducing the nation’s ability to feed itself.

I talked to many women of childbearing age in rural Kenya. Almost all wish to limit the size of their families. Their biggest challenge is the strong Kenyan/African cultural belief in the succession of generations and of the strong tradition of ancestral power. In addition, many men measure their manhood in the number of wives and children they have and see condoms and other birth control methods as an affront. Abstinence for women is often not an option in a culture in which spousal rape or non-consensual sex is accepted as an entitlement.

Young people are slowly being educated in family planning and HIV awareness. However access to condoms and other birth control methods is sketchy in rural areas. In addition, approximately 33% of Kenya’s population is Catholic. The Pope’s recent message to Africa that the use of condoms is unacceptable exacerbates not only the issue of HIV but of population growth.

The change in culture that needs to take place for a real decline in population growth in Kenya may simply take too long to prevent a disaster. A basically corrupt and uncaring government has not supported the education and infrastructure needed to promote the need for population control in African. And the idea of negotiating cultural or behavioural change smacks of neo-colonialism if it comes from the international community.

The situation in Kenya is common to many developing nations. When a change in culture is necessary for major change, the process is ponderous and painful. And it must be coordinated and powered by the ruling government and supported by the international community.

Population control, which is a touchy phrase at best, is a political and religious hot potato. Few power structures seem willing to get burned.

The World's Largest Pyramid Scheme

In the early 1900s, Charles Ponzi invented a scheme whereby investors are lured by abnormally high returns ("profits"), which are acquired from money paid in by subsequent investors rather than from revenues generated by any sustainable or even real business. Many forms of this fraudulent Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme have been tried over the years. They have all failed. Ponzi was jailed several times and died in poverty.

Now humanity is playing the largest pyramid scheme in history. Economic growth is spiralling ever upward and all the new players that are born into the game want a piece of the good life. Our politicians, the modern-day Ponzis, worship economic growth and do everything possible to promote it. The wealth that supports the scheme is the environment and the oil, water, air, forests, fish and much more that it contains.

But where will it end? An ever expanding economy, an ever growing population and a finite resource to make it feasible is just an enormous pyramid scheme. And we all know that a pyramid scheme comes crashing to a halt when it reaches its limits.

Oil prices have rocketed to over $100 a barrel, grain prices have doubled in the past year and water shortages are looming. These are glaring signals that the limits of our rich cradle of resources are finally being reached. We need to rethink our priorities, curb our population growth and stop this ludicrous Ponzi scheme.

Comments?

The Conservation Conundrum

When skimming the websites of environmental organizations, I see virtually no mention of curbing population growth. These groups don't see population as a contributing factor to the world's ailments. The solution, so these environmental websites expound, is conservation: compact fluorescent light bulbs, bicycling, less packaging, bring your own bag when shopping, turn thermostats down.

Sadly, this only buys time; it does not solve the problem. You don't need to be an Einstein to calculate that if we all pitch in and cut energy consumption by, say, 10% per capita, this robust savings will be wiped out as soon as the population grows 10%, which will take about 7 years in the United States. Then energy demand will rise to new records again.

To make matters worse, people don't normally leave their home countries to emigrate to developed nations in order to become "conservers." Many have been attracted by the promise of unlimited everything, including energy.

To make meaningful progress - that is, to actually decrease energy consumption permanently - we must stop population growth. Why aren't we dealing with this issue? If well-intentioned environmental organizations don't recognize this, what hope is there for (short-sighted) politicians?

Conservation is not the answer. But it is important, very important, for it can buy us time to tackle the real issue of population.

How much time will that take? How much time do we have? What's your take?