by Suzanne York, HowMany.org – In the aftermath of the UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, which deliberately left reproductive rights out of the official outcome text, there is little time to feel discouraged.  There are education and awareness campaigns to undertake, and alliances to build and strengthen – especially between the environmental and women’s
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by Suzanne York, HowMany.org – An experienced and learned colleague of mine asked me one evening at the start of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) if it really mattered what issues made it or didn’t make it into the official Rio+20 text known as “The Future We Want”. Symbolically, it seemed important to
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in rain-soaked Rio on the third day of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit and announced to conference delegates  that “women must be empowered to make decisions on whether and when to have children” if the world is to attain agreed-upon
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org Rio de Janeiro — Word was out that reproductive rights was left out of the Rio+20 Earth Summit finalized text, much to the dismay of many conference attendees.  The exclusion of these rights is supposedly on the grounds that reproductive rights have nothing to do with sustainable development. However, the text does
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org Rio de Janeiro — Nearly half of the world´s population is under the age of 25, or more than 3 billion people.  In some areas of the world, young women (ages 15-19)  are twice as likely to lack access to contraceptives they desire as women over the age of twenty.  As policy-makers
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org Rio de Janeiro — Some of the biggest names in the population and women’s empowerment movement weighed in at Rio+20 on successfully promoting these topics at the UN conference and beyond. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former president of Norway and now the UN Special Envoy on Climate Change who has been around
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org Rio de Janeiro — My first Rio+20 side event was titled “From Rio to Cairo to Rio…and Beyond”, but for me it was actually from San Francisco to Charlotte to Rio…and even beyond to Rio Centro, site of the UN Rio+20 conference, far from downtown..  So quite a trek just to get
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By Suzanne York, howmany.org, June 14, 2012 The past month or so has seen the release of several reports and studies focused on the state of the planet. The timing coincides with the run-up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20 Earth Summit. Most of the publications are on the increasingly dire
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org “Time is running out. You still have much work to do – perhaps too much work. But you must persevere. The stakes are very, very high – for people and the planet… for peace and prosperity.” ~UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in his address to delegates finalizing the Rio+20 Earth Summit
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  By Suzanne York, HowMany.org In less than a month the world, or at least the environmentally-inclined members of the world, will be in the throes of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), or Rio+20. Despite the official summit focus on the green economy and sustainable development, there are many groups and individuals working
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