In conjunction with this week’s World Food Prize events, an international group that advocates “family planning” will hold a breakfast briefing in Des Moines. Food security specialist Anuradha Harinarayan with “Save the Children” says improving life for women and children can help a whole country.
Harinarayan says reducing the number of children born in a family helps people plan for the longterm and live stable lives. She says relief organizations educate thousands of Afghan girls in refugee camps just outside the borders of that country.
Inside Afghanistan, they provide food aid to families. After decades of work on world hunger and family planning, there’s still much work left to do, but the Save the Children spokeswoman says it’s not discouraging.
Fertility rates have dropped, the number of malnourished children fell, hunger’s down, and economic progress is proved by increasing gross national products. She says within the last decade or so, aid organizations have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t in helping needy people and developing nations.