World Population Day is being observed today. The day, which seeks to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues, was established by the then-Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989. This year’s World Population Day calls for global attention to the unfinished business of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. What is the focus of this year’s event? 25 years ago, in 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development was held in Cairo, Eygpt. It was attended by over 20,000 officials – representatives from 179 governments across the world, as well as UN agencies and NGOs, and members of the international press. Issues brought to the table included immigration, infant mortality, family planning, birth control and access to education for women. From it, a Programme of Action was born which remains central to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to this day. Within the programme, four goals were laid out: to provide universal education, to reduce infant and child mortality, and that of maternal mortality, and to provide greater access to sexual health and reproductive services. This year’s World Population Day revisits those goals. Entitled ’25 years of the ICPD: Accelerating the Promise’, world leaders are expected to highlight issues around reproductive health and gender equality. At the time of writing, it stands at approximately 7.7 billion people. The UN makes population growth estimates every two years and in 2017, it predicted the world’s population will rise to 9.8billion by 2050, and 11.2 billion by 2100.
