Packard Foundation CEO: 'More attention needed on population issues'
By Reshma Prakash Earth Times News Service July 20, 1999
Governments need to increase their spending on population and reproductive health activities, while the media should pay more attention to how population growth affects economic and social development, according to Richard T. Schlosberg III, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation's new President and Chief Executive Officer.
"Americans may not be very good dealing with a non-crisis, but if a crisis is to be avoided, the media will have to do its job in bringing the issues before them," Schlosberg said. He spoke at a panel in New York on July 15.
Schlosberg, who took office in May 1999, said he was concerned about the declining levels of overseas development assistance to population and reproductive health issues by Western governments. He said that the United States would need to spend three times what it is currently giving to meet the commitments made at the UN International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994. At that conference, in what is now accepted as a turning point in the population movement, 179 nations made a commitment to spend $17 billion a year up to the year 2000 in order to meet certain agreed targets for expanding family planning and reproductive health services to women, men and children all over the world. Developing countries were to supposed to provide two-thirds of this amount, or $11.3 billion, while the remainder of $5.7 billion was to come from the donor countries. But the levels have fallen far short of those commitments - in 1997, developing countries spent only $7.7 billion, most of it coming from India, China, Indonesia, Iran and Mexico. Donor countries spent $2 billion in 1998 on population.
Schlosberg's remarks come at a time when overall levels of development aid for population have continued to decline. But foundations are playing an increasingly visible role in the world of development aid.
"Private foundations have in fact increased funding to population and reproductive health programs over the last few years," Schlosberg said.
The foundation will devote $75 million a year over the next five years towards population-related activities, he said.
The Packard Foundation was established by David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Company, and his wife, Lucile Salter Packard, in 1964. It is the third largest private foundation in the US, (after the Lilly Foundation and the Ford Foundation), with assets worth $13.5 billion as of June 1999. The foundation has pledged grants worth $400 million this year, double the amount in 1997. According to foundation officials, the jump is due to a big influx of resources that flowed in when David Packard died and bequeathed $5 billion worth of assets to the foundation.
Over the years, not only have foundations become an increasingly sought-after source of finance, they are also gathering great expertise in programs that are effective at the grassroots. By focusing their resources on carefully selected critical areas, instead of spreading themselves thin in the attempt to "do good," many foundations have managed to become powerful voices in the hurly-burly of international development politics.
Having been a publisher and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times - and earlier at the Denver Post - Schlosberg is emphasizing communications and raising public awareness of population issues.
"Foundations need to be more proactive in the way they approach the world," said Schlosberg. "They haven't been energetic enough about aggressively communicating their programs to the world. But that is slowly changing."
Other speakers at the briefing panel supported by Packard - and organized by Seattle based Elgin DDB - were Rachel T. Russell, Youth Partnerships Coordinator of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America; and Pranay Gupte, Editor and Publisher of The Earth Times.