WORLD POPULATION DAY OBSERVANCES WILL FORESHADOW SIX BILLION MARK, TO BE REACHED IN MID-1999
Press Release
OBV/53
POP/675
WORLD POPULATION DAY OBSERVANCES WILL FORESHADOW SIX BILLION MARK, TO BE REACHED IN MID-1999
19980709 Head of UN Population Fund Says Slowing of Growth Is Cause for Celebration at 11 July Commemorative EventsNEW YORK, 9 July (UNFPA) -- More than 100 countries, as well as institutions, non-governmental and private organizations, will observe World Population Day on Saturday (11 July) with special events anticipating the world's population reaching 6 billion next year. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has also announced that 16 June 1999 will be observed as "The Day of Six Billion" symbolizing the moment when world population passes that point.
The Executive Director of the Population Fund, Dr. Nafis Sadik, said reaching that landmark was an extraordinary achievement for humanity. No era in history had sustained population growth so rapid, while, at the same time, improving health and nutritional standards for most of the world's people. At the same time, she noted, fertility and family size had fallen faster than ever before. "The momentum of population growth has slowed, is slowing and will slow still further. We have something to celebrate", said Dr. Sadik.
The Director, United Nations Population Division, Joseph Chamie, said that while 16 June 1999 was not the exact date when world population would reach 6 billion, it was chosen as a reasonable and suitable day to mark the occasion. The total would reach that number sometime during the middle of 1999.
World Population Day was first observed in 1987, when the world population reached 5 billion. The Fund's Governing Council designated 11 July as World Population Day the following year. The United Nations authorized the event as a vehicle to build awareness of population issues and the impact they have on development and the environment.
Each year, with UNFPA encouragement, more than 100 governments, non- governmental organizations, institutions and individuals have come up with ways to call attention to the event ranging, from television shows and parades, to essay contests, and even selecting a childbirth to represent a significant milestone in a country's population.
To mark World Population Day, the UNFPA has produced and distributed globally a World Population Day poster and brochure, as well as the updated Population Issues Briefing Kit (in English, French, Spanish and Arabic) -- a survey of population issues and data.
The world's population today is 5.9 billion. Every day it grows to nearly a quarter of a million. It took all of recorded time for the population to reach the 1 billion mark by 1800. But it took only 130 years to reach 2 billion by 1930, and only a further 30 years to reach 3 billion. Fourteen years later, in 1974, it reached 4 billion.
By 1987, when World Population Day was celebrated for the first time, population had reached 5 billion. The eventual size of the world's population will depend on the choices people make over the next 10 years, according to the UNFPA. While rapid population growth was a major global concern, said Dr. Sadik, the first concern should be the lives of millions of people who were impoverished both materially and spiritually, because they could not exercise their reproductive rights.
According to the Population Fund, the largest-ever generation of young people are now entering adulthood. To make the proper choices, said Dr. Sadik, young people needed information and access to services to care for their reproductive and sexual health. Sex education encouraged responsible behaviour, including higher levels of abstinence, more use of contraceptives, later start of sexual activity, and fewer sexual partners. Responsible behaviour helped to prevent unintended pregnancy, abortion and infection by sexually transmitted diseases. It was critical to bring world population questions to the attention of as large an audience as possible, because of both the global nature of the problem and the need to enlist both high-level and grass-roots support for population programmes.
On the occasion of World Population Day, the UNFPA Executive Director released this statement:
"Towards the middle of next year, the population of the world will pass 6 billion people. Reaching this landmark is an extraordinary achievement for humanity. No era in history has sustained population growth so rapid, while at the same time improving health and nutritional standards for most of the world's people. At the same time, fertility and family size have fallen faster than ever before. The momentum of population growth has slowed, is slowing and will slow still further. We have something to celebrate.
"As we reach 6 billion, the question is whether we can maintain this progress.
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"In 1999, the population of the world will be twice what it was in 1960. It was only in 1987 that we celebrated reaching the 5 billion mark. We are adding to our numbers at the rate of 80 million a year and will continue to do so for most of the next decade. What happens after that depends on decisions made in the next 10 years.
"One billion of us are between 15 and 24 years old. They will largely determine the pace of population growth in the next century by their decisions on the size and spacing of their families. Their decisions will be affected by their economic well-being, by their education, by their health status - and by their ability to make choices.
"For all women and men, but for young women especially, ensuring choice is all-important. This depends partly on their education: education gives confidence. It depends on their access to reproductive health services, including family planning: the information and the means to choose. And it depends crucially on the behaviour of men. Men - as fathers, husbands, teachers and leaders -- must be prepared to acknowledge women's right to make choices, and to support the choices they make.
"If women can choose, they will have fewer children than their mothers did. Families will be smaller and population growth slower. That is the lesson of the last 30 years.
"The nations of the world agreed at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 that reproductive health was a human right. Everyone has the right to choose the size and spacing of his or her family. If they can exercise their right to choose, then we will be on the way to slower and more balanced population growth. On this World Population Day, let us dedicate ourselves once more to the right to choose, and to the actions needed to make the right a reality, for all people, everywhere."
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