The Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health (GLC), a sister organization of MLI under Aspen Global Health and Development, brought together many of its  council members in New York for an event held during the 66th U.N. General Assembly meeting. There, council members shared the stories that brought them personally into the work of reproductive health. As evident in the photo blog by Dominic Chavez, passion was not in short supply at the event where there was a consensus that more should be done to ensure universal access to reproductive health. Council member and former president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation Dr. Fred Sai said, "I challenge African leaders—political, religious, and traditional—to get up and do it. To say, 'we can change.'"

The Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health (GLC) is a sister organization of MLI under Aspen Global Health and Development. Earlier this month, GLC held an event bringing together many of its leaders in New York where journalist John Donnelly was able to interview many of them for the Global Post.

Dr. Frederick T. Sai, a medical doctor, was born in Ghana. He started working on global nutrition issues in 1963 – 48 years ago – as an advisor to the FAO regional office in Africa. He went on to become an internationally known authority on health, nutrition, population, and family planning, and among his various posts were president of International Planned Parenthood Federation, and Director of Population at the World Bank. He is a member of Aspen’s Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health. Sai spoke about what first got him interested in reproductive health rights issues, why African leaders don’t want to talk about family planning, and how his days as a doctor-coroner uncovered evidence that changed him.

In the 1960s, near the start of your career, the world population was 3 billion. In about a month, it will reach 7 billion. What happened?

What happened is the world knew how to care for mankind better. After World War II, the developing country populations started growing faster than the northern countries. It was due to a range of biomedical interventions, including introduction of antibiotics, and vaccinations. Death rates were coming down. Our ability to develop and to tackle diseases was much better. If it were not for efforts being made in the West and North with development and women’s education that made families smaller, our population would be much larger than 7 billion.