We closed out the year with our annual Year in Review event, showcasing our organization’s most noteworthy accomplishments in 2024. Senior staff took us through our achievements and progress—all made possible by our dedicated network of supporters!
Our Population Education program engaged with thousands of K-12 educators to help prepare the next generation of decision-makers to think critically about how population trends affect global issues. In addition, we made dozens of presentations to college and university classes across the country about the connections between population, health, environment, and sustainable development.
Our quarterly magazine, Population Connection, was widely distributed and shared with every member of Congress. Outreach efforts to combat misleading media stories resulted in several letters to the editor getting published in news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. The relaunch of #Fight4HER, our joint campaign with our sister organization, Population Connection Action Fund, was a major success. We worked in six critical communities to garner petition signatures and raise the alarm that reproductive freedom is central to building a safer, healthier world.
Recap the presentation to dive deeper into a year of impactful work. Together, we’ll celebrate our collective progress from 2024 and look ahead to the continued pursuit of population stabilization in the coming year!
This event was cohosted with our sister organization, Population Connection Action Fund.
Pamela Wasserman
Senior Vice President for Education
Marian Starkey
Vice President for Communications
Rebecca Harrington
Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach
Response from Marian Starkey, VP for Communications: Getting a paragraph about population challenges added to the United Nations Pact for the Future. Speaking out several times through written and oral statements at UN conferences and meetings, insisting that population growth be addressed in order to alleviate issues ranging from women’s rights to climate change to biodiversity.
Response from Rebecca Harrington, Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach: Engaging with hundreds of thousands of potential voters through our #Fight4HER organizing campaign and non-partisan and partisan door knocking programs.
Response from Pam Wasserman, Senior VP for Education: Facilitating well over 600 teacher workshops this year – a 15% increase from last year. Also hosting two very successful training institutes to continue to grow and refresh our awesome volunteer network of trainers.
What percentage of PopConnect’s time and money goes to birth control education?
Response from Marian Starkey, VP for Communications: We do not provide birth control education or sex education, but several great organizations do, including Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and SEICUS.
Response from Pam Wasserman, Senior VP for Education: A number of our Global Partners do provide family planning education in their communities and our advocacy team continually works to increase the U.S. share of international aid to support family planning education in countries that have the greatest need.
My understanding is that the Global Gag Rule is administrative. Republican presidents put it on the first day in office, and Democratic presidents take it off the first day. So, could you please advise on what legislation can do to keep it off?
Response from Rebecca Harrington, Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach: You are correct, the Gag Rule has always been issued or lifted in the form of an executive action. This allows it to be reimposed with the stroke of a pen by a Republican president, which is why we advocate for the Global H.E.R. (Health, Empowerment, and Rights) Act, which would serve as a permanent, legislative repeal of the Gag Rule, and ensure that a future president cannot unilaterally impose it-it could only be reimposed by Congress voting in favor of it. The House bill is H.R. 1838 and the companion bill in the Senate is S. 1098. You can read more about the bill here.
Is advocacy entirely focused on reproductive rights?
Response from Rebecca Harrington, Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach: Our advocacy efforts are largely focused on reproductive rights, because that’s where the legislation relevant to our work is-i.e. while there is no “population” specific legislation to lobby on and organize around, there are a number of family planning and reproductive health bills to push for, such as the Global H.E.R. Act (bill which would end the Global Gag Rule; the Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act (the bill that would repeal the Helms Amendment); and the Support U.N.F.P.A. Funding Act, which supports annual contributions to UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund). This year, given the groundswell of support for reproductive rights, in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we felt, strategically, that focusing on reproductive rights was the most effective organizing strategy.
Any lobbying related to state or federal legislation?
Response from Rebecca Harrington, Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach: We only lobby on federal legislation. We largely focus on global advocacy, but also do some domestic advocacy. On the global side, we lobby to end the Global Gag Rule and the Helms Amendment, to support funding for UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund) and for an increase to $1.74 billion in international family planning, including $116 million for UNFPA. On the domestic side, we lobby to end the Hyde Amendment, and in favor of robust funding for Title X, the domestic family planning program for low income individuals. While we don’t actively lobby on state issues, we stand firm against any and all state level abortion bans and restrictions on reproductive health and rights. You can read more about our policy priorities here.
As an increased population means increased energy use contributing to climate change disasters, are you getting this message across strongly enough? At this late date, it was a nonissue in the recent election.
Response from Marian Starkey, VP for Communications: We’re trying! As I mentioned above, we made statements at several UN conferences this year, warning of the futility of trying to mitigate climate change without addressing population growth. We have college-level resources on our website that make the links between population growth and environmental challenges, including climate change—these are used by professors with their students of environmental topics. And our college presentations that run throughout the year, including during a concentrated summer class, consistently demonstrate the relationship between a growing human population and the unsustainable and growing amount of greenhouse gas emissions we’re putting into the atmosphere. We also make this connection in op-eds and letters to the editor whenever relevant and appropriate.
