World Population Day - You may not have heard of it before but it has been celebrated for nearly 30 years.  Why? What is it all about? The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the world’s blueprint for a better future for all on a healthy planet. On World Population Day, we recognize that this mission is closely interrelated with demographic trends including population growth, ageing, migration and urbanization."  UN Secretary-General António Guterres. 

World Population Day, seeks to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues. In 1998 world population stood at 5.95 billion and the latest figure for 2018 it stood at 7.6 billion and it continues raising creating new issues for us all to resolve, such as hunger, housing etc. 

Established in 1989

World Population Day was established by the then-Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989, an outgrowth of the interest generated by the Day of Five Billion, which was observed on 11 July 1987.

This year's World Population Day calls for global attention to the unfinished business of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. Twenty-five years have passed since that landmark conference, where 179 governments recognized that reproductive health and gender equality are essential for achieving sustainable development.  

In November, UNFPA, together with the governments of Kenya and Denmark, will be convening a high-level conference in Nairobi to accelerate efforts to achieve these unmet goals. On World Population Day, advocates from around the world are calling on leaders, policymakers, grassroots organizers, institutions and others to help make reproductive health and rights a reality for all.