Yeshi Tadesse, a mother of six, seems an unlikely proponent of family planning as a solution to climate change. But the Ethiopian villager in her 30s speaks eloquently of the linkages between the two issues. Tadesse has witnessed the forests she grew up with being cleared to make room for more agricultural land to feed hungry mouths, leading to soil erosion and environmental degradation. "I currently have half a hectare of land, which I shall pass on to my six kids – but unless I get good yields as well as control my family size, my children will have to inherit much more hardship," she said. In her lifetime, she has also observed shifts in the four seasons. Droughts that used to be rare now affect her community periodically, and the rainy season eats into harvest time, spoiling crops and leaving people destitute, she said. In response, Tadesse is participating in a project run by LEM Ethiopia, one of a consortium of 47 local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) known as PHE, which takes a holistic approach to development. Participating groups aim to tackle challenges of health, population growth and the environment together, to improve people's livelihoods and well-being. Tadesse uses contraception to keep the size of her family in check at a time when dwindling farm productivity makes providing enough food for a large number of children a challenge. The PHE consortium believes that with the number of Ethiopia's people nearing 90 million – 45 percent of them under the age of 15 – and 1.2 million joining the national workforce each year, a growing population is one thing the country cannot afford to neglect if it is to meet its green ambitions. NATIONAL CONTRACEPTION TARGET PHE Executive Director NegashTeklu noted that Ethiopia's population is increasing by 2.6 percent each year, with an average fertility rate of 4.8 children per family. In 2011, the prevalence of contraceptive use in Ethiopia was 28.6 percent of the population, which is still a low figure, despite almost doubling since 2005. BN
