2 February 2025

SPA supports global population projects with ECO and Isaac Kabongo

 

While the dominant focus of SPA’s campaigns and messaging is around the immediate and pressing concerns with regard to Australia’s domestic population issues, SPA also contributes internationally. We recognise that population growth and overpopulation are problems locally AND globally. Two of our international activities are to raise the profile of population issues at the United Nations climate change conferences, and to support projects improving communities’ acceptance and use of family planning.

 


Isaac Kabongo representing SPA at a recent UNFCCC COP exhibition.

 

In both these endeavours, we have found an able collaborator in Isaac Kabongo, CEO of Ecological Christian Organisation (ECO), a Ugandan community development organisation based in Kampala. ECO is a faith-driven initiative dedicated to fostering environmental stewardship at the grassroots level. By reframing the relationship between Christianity, family planning, and discussions around population, the organisation provides an important bridge between faith and sustainability.

SPA executive member Jane O’Sullivan met Isaac at a UN climate change meeting in 2010, and he immediately appreciated the importance of population growth in hindering development and increasing climate change vulnerability in Africa. He promptly organised a regional conference on “Population growth and climate change: exploring the synergistic role of enhancing reproductive rights for climate-resilient community development in the Horn of Africa” in September 2010. The conference was supported by the UNFPA and the Ugandan government and, with sponsorship from SPA, attended by delegates from nine Horn of Africa countries.

This conference led to ECO being selected as one of three agencies to implement a ground-breaking “population, health and environment” (PHE) project titled “Health of People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB)”. Since that project, ECO continued to support PHE approaches, and SPA is now funding its new project “Healthy People & Resilient Ecosystems” in the Bugweri district of Uganda.

Meanwhile, while SPA’s budget has not always allowed us to send our own delegates to the climate change COP meetings, we have been able to assist Isaac and other Ugandan delegates to register, and to collaborate in organising exhibits and side events in which Isaac has presented ECO’s PHE work and raised the importance of population growth and family planning for climate change resilience.

It was an honour to interview Isaac for both the SPA sponsored Post Growth Australia Podcast (PGAP) and the SPA Newsletter, February 2025 edition. Isaac’s interview for PGAP may be listened to below.  We also reproduce Isaac’s interview for the Newsletter, which may be downloaded HERE and read on page 7 – 8 under ‘Sister Organisations.’

 

 

Isaac Kabongo speaking on a panel at the COP29

 

SPA:  Isaac, tell us a little about yourself, your background, and passions.

I am a son of a smallholder farmer from Eastern Uganda in a region called Busoga. I was born during the regime of Idi Amin Dada. Our country was going through serious economic breakdown and civil conflict, so access to education and healthcare services were difficult. I was lucky to enrol for my formal education but under very challenging environment. With God’s grace I was able to attain a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from Makerere University in 2002. I am a Social Scientist with a passion and vision of working towards a thriving and resilient planet where humans live in harmony with nature and biodiversity. This passion and vision led to the registration of Ecological Christian Organisation (ECO) in Uganda in 2005 with operations in the Greatlakes and the Horn of Africa regions. It’s our work on the African continent and beyond that led us the celebrated partnership between ECO and Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

SPA:  What can you tell us about population growth in Uganda and its impacts on people, communities and the environment?  Is conversation on overpopulation a taboo topic?

From 2.5 million people in 1911 to 45.9 million people in 2024, Uganda’s fertility rates are at 4.3 percent with high teenage pregnancies and child marriages. The unmet need for family planning services is very evident in the country. It’s estimated that 3 in every 10 women who want to voluntarily use family planning services do not have access. Because of overpopulation, there is high school dropout, especially for girls. In Uganda, overpopulation has led to high degradation of fragile and critical ecosystems such as wetlands and forests.

Conversations about overpopulation can bring mixed reactions depending on who you talk to in Africa including Uganda. Religious and political leaders tend to defend rapid population growth because of their interests. However, from the ecological and economic perspective, overpopulation contributes to increased degradation of our fragile ecosystems and biodiversity while exacerbating inequality, deepens poverty and conflicts in many cases. Promoting voluntary family planning and access to information is one way of addressing this challenge. As ECO, we are ready to continue working with SPA on these issues.

SPA:  Tell us about ECO, including how it started, its main organisational cores and objectives and how it incorporates family planning and reproductive health into its work.

In 2003, we started coming together in a Christian Fellowship in Bukoto, a suburb within Kampala city. While reading the Bible, we realised that nature is God’s beautiful creation. Through nature, God is able to teach us, speak to us and provide for us. In 2004, our serious discussions about the linkage between Christianity and conservation inspired us to form ECO, receiving our registration certificate in 2005. We are happy that this year in April, we shall be celebrating 20 years of existence.

ECO’s vision is “working towards a thriving and resilient planet where humans live in harmony with nature and biodiversity”. Our overall objective is “to inspire, share, and empower individuals, communities, companies and organizations to take action in protecting and preserving nature and biodiversity while transforming society through sustainable development”. Our core values include; Ecological & Social Justice, Scientific Integrity, Transparency & Accountability, Diversity & Inclusivity, Innovation and Creativity. Through ECO’s programme focusing on Population, Health and Environment (PHE) we have integrated family planning and reproductive health into our work.

SPA:  Recently, SPA committed funding to support new initiative run by ECO titled “Healthy People and Resilient Ecosystems”.  Tell us a little more about how this project will aim to educate people and communities around the positives of family planning and smaller families.

We have worked with SPA on a number of projects. “Healthy People and Resilient Ecosystems” is quite unique. The overall objective of the project is to “promote sustainable natural resource management and increase community access to reproductive health and family planning services” in Bugweri district, Makuutu sub county, Eastern Uganda. This project area was selected on the basis of high ecosystems degradation yet it has the highest distribution of adolescent/ teenage pregnancies aged less than 15 years. It’s located within the Lake Victoria Basin which is facing serious deforestation, overfishing and pollution. In recent years, the discovery of Rare Earth Elements in the region has created anxiety and excitement among the local population. The extractive sector development has its challenges and ECO is empowering communities as a mitigation measure. The specific objectives of the project are: a) to enhance natural resources management in a sustainable and profitable way and; b) to increase community access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and family planning services.           

SPA:  You have also collaborated with SPA in other ways.  Many SPA supporters may not know that you have represented SPA at several COP conferences.  Tell us how these opportunities came about and some of your reflections of your involvement at the COP talks.

For many years, SPA has supported ECO to participate in the UNFCCC COPs with the aim of advancing health issues on the climate change negotiation agenda by sharing our Population, Health and Environment (PHE) approach. We participate in side events and exhibitions on different topics such as access to sexual and reproductive health services or exploring how climate change impacts health delivery including access to family planning services. Over the years, we have worked together with other stakeholders in solidarity to bring the issue of climate change and health on the UNFCCC agenda. This means broadening strategies for action by parties but also increasing access to public and private climate finance. We have had the opportunity to share our work at the global level there by influencing policy formulation and planning processes at international, regional and national levels. Our participation in COPs has enabled us to learn from others while building strategic partnerships that enables us to work together on agreed upon issues such as health and climate change.

SPA:  Why do you believe it is important that we take a global approach toward addressing overpopulation and why it is important for organisations such as SPA to support overseas projects?

Ecosystem services play a transboundary role in not only in climate change mitigation and adaptation but can also enhance the protection of biodiversity in different places. Overpopulation in one region may lead to overproduction in another and hence unstainable utilisation of natural resources on our mother earth. These are unstainable practices regardless of where they take place, they affect communities across the continents. There is evidence that emissions in Europe and China are causing prolonged and severe droughts in Sub Saharan Africa, causing hunger and death. SPA should support projects aimed at overpopulation because if we don’t confront the causes collaboratively, impacts such as forced migration, biodiversity loss, food insecurity and conflicts among other will increase. By taking the global approach, we facilitate debate to generate ideas for possible solutions. Without our voice and aspirations, then we let the status quo remain. Overpopulation will not be put on the global agenda if we shy away from insisting this issue is put to the table. That is why support from SPA to ECO and other organisations is not only critical but also very relevant.

You can find out more about ECO at their website:  https://ecouganda.org/

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