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World Population Day 2020 UPSC

World Population Day 2020 | UPSC

      HEADLINES:

World Population Day 2020

      WHY IN NEWS:

Women suffered most as COVID-19 took a toll on reproductive health

SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 3: Population : UN

      LEARNING: 

For PRELIMS  we have mentioned everything ! UNFPA , Theme , Celebrations and much more .

For MAINS go with the suggested reading link . You will find interesting analysis .

      ISSUE: 

The country-wide lockdown imposed on March 25, 2020, has been harsher on India’s women than men in matters of reproductive health, safety and security.

WORLD POPULATION DAY 2020

  • Human population has grown beyond Earth’s sustainable means.
  • We are consuming more resources than our planet can regenerate, with devastating consequences.

It took humanity 200,000 years to reach one billion and only 200 years to reach seven billion. 

  • We are still adding an extra 80 million each year and are headed towards 10 billion by mid-century.

WHY WE CELEBRATE

  • World Population Day (WPD), established by the United Nations Development Programme in 1989, falls on 11 July every year .
  • By resolution 45/216 of December 1990, the United Nations General Assembly decided to continue observing World Population Day.

The day seeks to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.

THEME 2020

How to safeguard the health and rights of women and girls now

SIGNIFICANCE OF THEME

Women, who account for the largest share of front-line health workers, for example, are disproportionately exposed to the coronavirus. 
 

  • Women were deprived of abortion during the lockdown.
  • They had to undergo unwanted pregnancies.
  • They had to deliver babies at home.
  • They had to face physical violence and some of them had to skip meals.
  • The abortion rate was 47 per 1,000 women aged 15–49 years.
  • 1.85 million women will be unable to access abortion services as a near-term impact of COVID-19, directly affecting their sexual and reproductive health.
  • There are several reports highlighting the drop in institutional deliveries.
  • Figures regarding access to contraceptive facilities tell a similar story.
  • It took hundreds of thousands of years for the world population to grow to 1 billion – then in just another 200 years or so, it grew sevenfold.

In 2011, the global population reached the 7 billion mark, and today, it stands at about 7.7 billion, and it’s expected to grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.

  • The recent past has seen enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy.
  • Meanwhile, average global lifespans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to  72.6 years in 2019.

In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; by 2015, total fertility for the world had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman.   

  • These trends will have far-reaching implications for generations to come.

World Population Day 2020

Many women in India had to skip abortions and undergo unwanted pregnancies owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. Photo: Flickr Many women in India had to skip abortions and undergo unwanted pregnancies owing to the COVID-19 lockdown.

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE

  • More people inevitably put more demands on the planet.
  • More people require more food, water, sanitation, homes, public services, and amenities – but our Earth is struggling to cope.
  • Populations of wild species have plummeted, global temperatures are rising, our seas are full of plastic and forests are disappearing.
  • Humans are directly responsible for the sixth mass extinction and the climate crisis, the most serious environmental threats our planet has ever faced.

Today, a child born in the US will produce 160 times more carbon emissions than one born in Niger.

  • We are already using the resources of more than one-and-a-half planets.
  • Everyone has the right to a good quality of life and with increasing global affluence, our collective impact will increase even further.

BACKGROUND

World Population Day was an UNDP outgrowth of the interest generated by the Day of Five Billion, which was observed on 11 July 1987.

  • The Day was first marked on 11 July 1990 in more than 90 countries.
  • Since then, a number of a number of UNFPA country offices and other organizations and institutions commemorate World Population Day, in partnership with governments and civil society.

UNFPA

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.

UNFPA mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

UNFPA SUPPORTS

  1. Reproductive health care for women and youth in more than 150 countries.
  2. The health of pregnant women.
  3. Reliable access to modern contraceptives sufficient to benefit 20 million women a year.
  4. Training of thousands of health workers.
  5. Prevention of gender-based violence.
  6. Abandonment of female genital mutilation.
  7. Prevention of teen pregnancies.
  8. Efforts to end child marriage.
  9. Delivery of safe birth supplies.
  10. Censuses, data collection and analyses, which are essential for development planning

      IASbhai WINDUP: 

TOGETHER WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

  • We can achieve a sustainable global population when communities, governments and organisations take action to encourage smaller families through choice, education, women’s empowerment, and easy access to family planning.
  • By doing so, we can ensure that, in the future, everyone can have a decent standard of living on a healthy planet.
SUGGESTED READING : https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-dashboard 
     SOURCES:THE HINDU & PIB | World Population Day 2020 | UPSC

DISCOVER MORE : UN Observances

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