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World Population Day is another UN or United Nations initiative that takes every year as an opportunity to boost awareness of global population issues. The day was established to ensure that the people’s awareness is boosted in terms of various population issues like the importance of family planning, gender equality, poverty, mental health, and human rights.
Well, the answer to this question is hidden in the history of world population day which was suggested by Dr. K.C. Zachariah when he worked as a Senior demographer at World Bank and discovered that one day when the population reached five billion.
To answer your question “when is world population day?”, the day is observed on July 11 every year. It was inspired by the public interest in the “five billion days” which was on July 11, 1989. It was the approximate date on which the world’s population reached the five billion people mark.
This caused a stressful situation and attracted a lot of attention across the world. Thus, the UN stepped up and initiated a program to combat the situation of the growing population and raise awareness for the same among the public.
The history of the day stresses the need of controlling the increasing population across the planet by emphasising the value of family planning.
In the past few years, the importance of world population day si closely associated with awareness and support to women and their rights. In 2018, the slogan on world population day was “Family Planning is a human right”. This was followed by 2019 when the emphasises was on increasing awareness about reproductive health problems among the people.
This was because a large number of pregnant women across the globe suffered from poor reproductive health. Yes, researches highlighted how women died while giving birth and protecting them became the primary aim of the initiative. This again was related to the importance of family planning.
This celebration of awareness was continued past year, in 2020, when the world was under lockdown and even though the streets were filled with silence, women and girls’ rights were still at the risk of being violated. Hence, the theme of World Population Day in 2020 was “How to safeguard the health and rights of women and girls now.”
In 2020, UNFPA research highlighted the concerns regarding the unintended pregnancies in numbers of 7 million as it mentioned, "If the lockdown continues for 6 months with major disruptions to health services, then 47 million women in low- and middle-income countries may not be able to access modern contraceptives.”
While this day has been celebrated for over three decades, from 1987 to 2021, the theme of 32nd International World Population Day seems to revolve around the same as last year as various countries are still battling against the virus.
While last year, the awareness initiatives included posters and essays on the topic of world population day, here are some quotes by the most influential people:
"As a woman leader, I thought I brought a different kind of leadership. I was interested in women's issues, in bringing down the population growth rate… as a woman, I entered politics with an additional dimension - that of a mother."
Benazir Bhutto, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan
"Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess."
David Suzuki
"Our human population continues to expand at such a scary rate - it's unbelievable."
Bindi Irwin
"Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence"
A P J Abdul Kalam
According to World Population Clock, we are at the 7.9 billion people mark in 2021 while the current average population increases by 81 million people per year.
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