We word the passing of an admired chief within the discipline of household planning, our colleague and good friend Carl Wahren. To commemorate his life and work, we share a brand new, wide-ranging interview with Carl about inhabitants insurance policies and the altering function of the UN in worldwide household planning.
by The Overpopulation Mission
It’s with unhappiness that we now inform our readers that Carl Wahren, considered one of TOP’s mentors, has left us. After an extended illness, he handed away peacefully along with household on 13 April. With a wealthy and productive life, Carl belonged to a small group of elders with extraordinary data and a long time of expertise within the fields of inhabitants coverage, worldwide household planning, and accountable parenthood. His work-life lined an extended energetic interval, from about 1962 to the late 1990’s, together with voluntary work thereafter.
On the first UN intergovernmental Inhabitants Convention in Bucharest in 1974, Carl headed the drafting course of for the World Inhabitants Plan of Motion. He was additionally energetic within the second massive UN inhabitants convention in 1984, in Mexico Metropolis. Between 1978 and 1984 he was Secretary Basic of the Worldwide Deliberate Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Later, he was Head of the Support Administration Division at OECD (1987-1997). The checklist of his achievements is lengthy, and TOP plans to publish Carl’s historic archive on the web site later this yr.
Carl’s stance on inhabitants issues was all the time clear, with the wellbeing of each the atmosphere and folks in focus. His reminiscence was excellent; even on the age of 90, he might recount what ministers, heads of state, and key actors in household planning mentioned and did particularly occasions. His TOP weblog on “Rights and tasks in inhabitants insurance policies” is considered one of our greatest blogs, please learn when you’ve got not carried out so.
A singular movie interview
Carl was energetic virtually to the tip, and TOP is proud to right here be capable to current this interview with him, filmed two months in the past. Carl was completely satisfied when he noticed the ultimate model of the movie, produced by TOP and Swedish film-maker Johan Heurgren.
On this interview, Carl gives a counterpoint to the present dominant narrative from the UN, that inhabitants interventions previous to Cairo (1994) had been imposed by the West and performed “with out heed to folks’s reproductive aspirations, their well being, or the well being of their youngsters.” The UNFPA has additionally said “engineering inhabitants numbers has not confirmed profitable up to now. Relatively, it solely serves to undermine human rights, together with reproductive rights.” Carl Wahren’s response to those statements was, “Absolute garbage”. He describes the household planning applications with which Swedish assist (SIDA) was concerned, in Sri Lanka, South Korea and elsewhere, and the big advantages that flowed from these applications for ladies and for nationwide growth.
Given the disinformation campaigns discrediting earlier voluntary household planning applications, it’s all the extra helpful to listen to instantly from the individuals who have been there. We’re very grateful to Carl for his enthusiasm in sharing his reminiscences. We hope the movie can be broadly distributed – please share with anybody you suppose would have an interest!
