“Think of the earth as a living organism that is under attack by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.” – Gore Vidal, American novelist and critic.
The world is about to explode thanks to the growing world population. According to current estimates, the world population is approximately 6.5 billion. And the population of India alone is about 1.17 billion, which is one sixth of the world’s population. So what’s the problem? Well, it’s simple logic! When the world grows in number so do the problems! The bigger the numbers, the bigger the problems become! More people would mean more food to grow to feed, more resources to provide quality health and education, more jobs to be created to provide employment, more cities and towns to accommodate and much of the like! Unfortunately, the current global economic collapse will not allow this to happen as quickly as it should. In fact, it has already curbed several major global problems, the main ones being health and education.
This twin problem of population growth and the global financial and economic crisis threatens to reverse hard-won gains in education and health in developing countries, and those worst affected by this are women and girls, says the United Nations . Even before the crisis hit, women and girls represented the majority of the world’s poor. And now this crisis has only aggravated their situation by pushing them into poverty, exposing them to greater health risks, especially if they are pregnant, hunger, malnutrition and unemployment. The world cannot afford to turn a blind eye to women’s issues, as this has the sinister potential to spill over and affect the world community at large. So, rightly so, this year’s World Population Day, on 11 July, will focus on investing in women and girls. The UN is urging member countries to continue to invest more in women’s empowerment to help us get out of this global turmoil. In this way, the United Nations believes that the world will once again move towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Origin and purpose of World Population Day (WPD)
The need of the hour is to raise awareness among global communities about the demographic crisis in the midst of economic collapse and the worst repercussions it will have, particularly for women and girls, and how addressing these issues will help the world! And the world will have to come together to act and continue to brainstorm innovative and safer ways to address the inequality between available resources and increasing population! And this year’s World Population Day, on July 11, seeks to do just that.
This year is the 20th anniversary of World Population Day. And what began as an annual event of the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Program in 1989, which in turn was inspired by Five Billion Day on July 11, 1987, when the world population reached five billion, has now probably become more important than ever. . In addition to honoring the customary way of celebrating to raise awareness of global population issues, setting goals, and finding ways through organizing events, workshops, rallies, seminars, and discussions, this year’s DPM has a bigger task among its members! hands as the world reels under recession!
2009 WTD Theme May Help Address Recession-Induced Deficiencies and Global Population Control
The theme of this year’s United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) World Population Day is “Fight Poverty, Educate Girls”. With banners declaring “When girls stay in school and get an education, poverty doesn’t stand a chance,” this year’s campaign urges all men and women to “join the movement against poverty and educate girls.” “. This year, World Population Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of educating girls to help solve the vicious cycle of repercussions ranging from development issues to poverty, human rights and gender equality. .
The global economic collapse has been a matter of additional concern for a world already facing the serious problem of population growth. What started as a financial crisis in rich countries is now deepening into a global economic crisis that is hitting developing countries hard. Recession basically means a sense of insecurity resulting in deep cuts in spending including existing and new investment leading to unemployment, rising protectionism meaning more and more people employed in foreign countries and institutions are left without work, governments spend less on public welfare projects like education. , health, nutrition, which translates into the disempowerment of people and women in particular. All this will only make the situation worse.
According to UNFPA, the key lies in empowering women and children, particularly those in developing countries, as they will bear the brunt of the impact of the recession. The key lies in educating girls and empowering women to meet these challenges through policy responses that are grounded in women’s roles as economic agents. Governments around the world must also continue and increase investments in public health, education, child care and other social services, as these will help lessen the impact of the crisis on the entire family and increase productivity for a healthier economy. .
What is at stake!
The UNFPA-sponsored International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) has warned that in times of recession, sexual and reproductive health services are likely to suffer as health spending is reduced. However, it is a fact that every dollar invested in reducing the unmet need for contraceptive services will avoid between $2 and $4 in maternal and newborn health costs. Also at stake is the well-being of children, which can be dramatically affected due to the loss of jobs for women in both the formal and informal sectors. This, coupled with restricted access to health and family planning services, could force them to resort to abortion, including unsafe abortion.
Empowered women and population control
UNFPA views reproductive health and gender issues as critical determinants of population dynamics. Fertility is largely driven by the reproductive and health decisions that individual women may or may not make, depending on the information, services, and supplies that are available to them, the cultural context in which they live, and the educational and economics that are provided. Empowered women can make these important birth-spacing decisions through effective use of contraception, planning smaller families, and healthier communities. And empowerment begins with proper education, access to better health care, and economic and employment freedom, which would signal the beginning of effective population control and help reduce the impact of the global economic collapse. Furthermore, empowering women will result in better maternal health and adequate nutrition for them, their children and their families.
As the UN Secretary General says, let us urge decision makers, at the national, state, district and in our household levels, to protect women’s ability to earn income, keep their daughters in school and obtain information and reproductive health services, including voluntary family planning. Let us help advance the rights of women and girls, and empower them as highly productive members of society capable of contributing to economic growth and recovery. There can be no better investment on this day or any other.