SECRETARY-GENERAL TO WELCOME 6 BILLIONTH WORLD CITIZEN

Press Release
SG/2061

SECRETARY-GENERAL TO WELCOME 6 BILLIONTH WORLD CITIZEN

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will welcome “Baby 6 billion” on 12 October, the day the United Nations has chosen, based on expert projections, to mark this unprecedented population milestone. At a ceremony in Sarajevo's Kosovo Hospital, the Secretary-General will greet a newborn baby symbolically designated as the 6 billionth world citizen.

Other activities for the Day of 6 Billion are planned around the world, including the launch of books, CD-ROMs, Web sites and media campaigns on the 6 billion milestone. Every hospital in the world is invited to designate babies born on 12 October as the symbolic baby 6 billion.

These activities are being carried out against the backdrop of unprecedented population growth. Global population has quadrupled this century, faster than at any time in previous history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the world's population was approximately 1.5 billion. In 1927, it reached 2 billion; in 1960, 3 billion; in 1974, 4 billion; and in 1987, 5 billion. The last billion was added in just 12 years, and human numbers continue to climb by about 78 million each year.

Reaching 6 billion has both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, it is the result of personal choice and collective action for better health and longer life. At the same time, the Day of 6 Billion challenges the international community to provide food, warmth, shelter, education, health care and the basis for a dignified life for all people. Currently, 90 per cent of the 356,000 babies born each day will be raised in developing countries, where they are likely to face inequalities in access to basic resources. Of the 4.8 billion people in developing countries, nearly three fifths lack basic sanitation. Almost one third have no access to clean water. A quarter do not have adequate housing, and a fifth have no access to modern health services.

Family size in developing countries is half what it was in 1969 – three children per woman, instead of six. But, population continues to grow because of the unprecedented number of people in their childbearing years – 1 billion are between the ages of 15 and 24 years -- and because millions of women still lack the means or information to choose the number and spacing of their children. Population is growing fastest in the world’s poorest and least- prepared countries.

- 2 - Press Release SG/2061 11 October 1999

In 1994, at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, some 179 countries adopted a practical and realistic Programme of Action to tackle population challenges by focusing not on numbers, but on human needs. They affirmed that these challenges are closely linked to prospects for alleviating poverty, empowering women and protecting the environment. The 20-year Programme of Action calls for expanded access to education, especially for girls, and to comprehensive, quality reproductive health care, as well as stepped up efforts to redress gender inequality and violence against women.

This year, the General Assembly held a special session to review the Cairo agreement, and affirmed that the Programme of Action is practical, realistic and necessary.

Since the Cairo Conference, governments have worked to implement the Programme of Action. Many countries have adopted new development policies, incorporating population concerns. Nearly half have reviewed their policies on population and development, and more than a third have updated policies to bring them in line with the Cairo goals. Many countries have taken steps to ensure access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services, and to move towards a client-centered approach.

Two thirds of all countries have introduced policy or legislative measures to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. There are also growing efforts to eliminate gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and “honour” killings, as called for in the Programme of Action.

In Cairo, governments agreed that $17 billion a year would be needed by the year 2000 for population and reproductive health activities. Of this, two thirds, or $11.3 billion, was to come from developing countries themselves, and the remaining $5.7 billion from donor countries. The developing countries are about two thirds of the way to their target, contributing some $7.7 billion, while the donor countries have reached only about a third of their target, or $1.9 billion.

The Day of 6 Billion serves as a reminder to governments that they must make good on the pledges they made at the 1994 Cairo Conference in order to sustain the momentum towards reaching the Programme of Action's goals and creating a better world for all of the planet's inhabitants -- 6 billion and counting.

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