UN: Sustainable Development and Family Planning

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I will take that specific suggestion back. I point out to the noble Baroness that the Deputy Prime Minister is leading this delegation to Rio and I am very pleased that that is the case. She will know how he has emphasised the importance of placing women and girls centre stage with regard to development, which is what is required here.

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the most effective family planning in the Third World comes through education—that is what makes women into an asset rather than a liability—and that preventing women having children is not the best way of approaching this? This is not a medical matter but a matter of society providing education. What plans are there for helping with girls’ education so that they can progress?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right. This is a circular issue: where girls have more access to education you see the birth rate coming down, and where the birth rate is coming down girls have more access to education. When families are able to choose, they tend to choose to have fewer children and to invest more in them, and that certainly includes education.