Objectives:

The short-term objectives are:

1. Direct the attention of concerned public and private entities towards studying climate change patterns in detail by forming teams to carry out assessments on daily, monthly and yearly basis in different geographic locations across Jordan.
2. Direct healthcare professionals and SRH stakeholders in the public and private sectors and public universities to focus on scientific research in the impact of climate change on SRH and its adverse effects on family planning, and to educate women more about limiting emission that impact climate change in Jordan.
3. Provide the required financial support for research and studies in climate change, especially those that connect climate change to SRH in Jordan.
4. Disseminate different forms of media messages highlighting climate change and its impact on SRH in Jordan.
5. Provide awareness programs nation-wide that link climate change to WSRH in Jordan through government and semi-government women agencies.
6. Urge international organizations to direct logistic and financial support to linking climate change to SRH in Jordan.
7. Integrate the topic of climate change and its link to WSRH in secondary and higher education curricula to raises public awareness.

Long-term policy objectives:

The long-term policy objectives are:

1. Establish scientific research centers specialized in climate change and SRH in Jordan.
2. Build sufficient expertise in climate change and SRH in Jordan to track the long-term impact and identify solutions to mitigate its current forms and unexpected future forms.
3. Incorporate the topic of climate change and its link to SRH in policies formulated by ministries and government departments in the long term.
4. Raise awareness of the impact of climate change and its connection to SRH across all maternal and child health centers in Jordan.
5. Identify sustainable electronic tools to disseminate advice and guidance in this area in Arabic to all women across the kingdom and develop updated educational materials based on the findings of studies and scientific research on this topic in Jordan.

Abstract:

As the focal entity for population and development issues, the Higher Population Council (HPC) strives to update and enhance population and development data and information, and propose evidence-based population policies in line with the commitments of Jordan to the Programme of Action of the 1994 ICPD (Cairo Conference), Nairobi Summit commitments, and 2030 agenda for sustainable development, including SDG 3 “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all”, the fundamental right of every human being to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and SDG 13 “taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. As such, it became important to link climate change to sexual and reproductive health and identify research resources to measure climate change indicators and its impact on women’s sexual and reproductive health (WSRH).

To follow up on current issues affecting WSRH in the short and long terms, HPC issued this policy brief that identifies the linkages between climate change and women’s sexual and reproductive health

in Jordan for the first time. The policy brief aims to mitigate the potential negative consequences of climate change which has intensified in the last two decades. It also intends to identify the links between climate change and sexual and reproductive health in the short and long term based on available related information and data.

The impact of climate change on WSRH has attracted interest from researchers around the world and has become a focus research area. Numerous studies have become available indicating that climate change impacts aspects of WSRH. However, these findings have not been proven worldwide due to limited research in different parts of the world and the difficulty of identifying research methodologies that can isolate the impact of climate change from other factors. Some studies indicated that there is a connection between rising temperatures and fertility, birth weight and abortion. Other studies focused on the impact of climate change on the quantity and quality of food, which indirectly affects WSRH

In Jordan, significant attention and efforts have been directed towards mitigating the impact of climate change on different sectors including agriculture, water and health, especially with respect to respiratory diseases and cancer. Addressing the impact of climate change on SRH has been identified as a national priority for public authorities, considering the lack of research locally due to lack of support for this type of research and the linkages between SRH and climate change in Jordan.

Given the lack of evidence, public and civil society institutions concerned with women, health and environmental issues in Jordan have paid limited attention to providing medical awareness and education on the impact of climate change on sexual and reproductive health. These proposed policies shed light on this critical aspect of climate change effects and enable following up on the impact in the next years.

The policy brief presents four policies on linking climate change to SRH. The first policy is on directing scientific research in Jordan towards linking climate change to WSRH in the public and private sectors. The second policy seeks to educate governmental and educational sectors in how to link climate change to WSRH, whereas the third policy focuses on enhancing the role of the media in highlighting climate change and linking it to WSRH in Jordan and the fourth policy concentrates on engaging the medical private sector in WSRH. To ensure successful implementation of these policies, communication channels among various stakeholders should be strengthened to facilitate coordination of all issues pertaining to the impact of climate change on SRH in Jordan.