The World Population Welfare Day 2024 is being observed across the globe today as a moment to ask who is still going uncounted and why and what these costs individuals, societies, and global efforts to leave no one behind.
It is a day to commit t more to ensure that our data systems capture the full range of human diversity so that everyone is seen, can exercise their human rights, and can reach their full potential.
Punjab Chief Minister -Maryam Nawaz – in her message on this day said the welfare of the population was inked with a controlled number of populations. The increasing population impacts the resources and infrastructure. We need to keep this society happy through the control of the population, the CM said.
This day focuses on the unfinished business of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in 1994 in Cairo. Twenty-five years have passed since this conference when 179 governments recognized reproductive health and gender equality as crucial for achieving maintainable development.
The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Department of International Development (DFID) jointly mark this Day. Government representatives, members of parliament at federal and provincial levels, heads of diplomatic missions, representatives of the development sector, and private sector organizations attend it every year.
Like the global population, in Pakistan almost more than 50% population are women. If this population is addressed equally, their rights are guaranteed and voice is heard, the society of Pakistan can largely improve. It took thousands and thousands of years for the population to grow to 1 billion in the world, in about 200 years, it grew sevenfold. The global population in 2011 reached 7 billion, and by 2012 it stood at 7.9 billion. The population across the world is likely to grow to 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.
This dramatic growth was largely helped by increasing numbers of people surviving to reproductive age and was accompanied urbanization and migration tendencies. These trends can largely impact generations to come. The recent past saw enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; by 2015, it had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman. Meanwhile, average global lifespans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years in 2019.
The year 2007 was the first in which more people lived in urban than in rural areas, by 2050 about 66% of the world’s population will live in cities. Increasing population affects economic development, employment, and income distribution. It causes poverty, and affects social protection of the people living in a country. It marginalizes access to health care, education, housing, sanitation, water, food, and energy and other civic facilities. To address the needs of individuals, policymakers must understand how people, where they are, how old they are, and how many more will follow them in the future. In societies like Pakistan, the population has increased to nearly 240 million and the economy is in shambles. An increase in population could affect all necessities of like. There is a need both at the public and government levels to address this issue to avoid go into further complicated situation in the near future.
(By Rana Kashif)
