World population hits 6.21 bn mark:UNFPA

December 3, 2002
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By A Staff Reporter

KATHMANDU, Dec. 3: The world population today hit 6.21 billion, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) announced while launching the state of the world population-2002 globally. The report is the 25th in its series since 1978 when the UNFPA started announcing the world population.

Coinciding with the launch of the report, the UN special agency looking after the population activities of the world, today unveiled the new logo of the organisation which it said was changed to cover its areas of duties and goals.

The report comes importantly with the theme ‘poverty and its relationship to population questions’ at a time when it is realised by people of every quarter of life that population activities are the main concerns for a prosperous world community.

At the launching ceremony, the UNFPA country team in Nepal also made public the population report of Nepal, stating the Himalayan Kingdom is home to 23,151,423 people. The report puts the average life expectancy of the Nepalese people at 59.7 years. But the report does not mention any data about the Nepalese living below the poverty line, although the world population report cites says poverty has declined and that the present generation has learnt to live in smaller family sizes than its parents.

Launching the state of the world population report-2002 here this afternoon, vice chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Dr. Shankar Sharma said that the upcoming 10th five-year plan was highly compatible with the theme of the population report.

“As we are going to address poverty, the theme “People, Poverty and Possibilities” best corresponds to our goal,” he said.

Vice chairman Dr. Sharma said that along with a greater focus on reproductive health for promoting economic growth and reducing poverty, the developing nations like Nepal now needed to improve their financial, tourism and trade sectors to bring about positive changes within a very short span of time.

Talking for the first time about monitoring development activities in the country, Dr. Sharma said that the NPC was on a war footing to meet its target of mapping the works done by the INGOs and NGOs in the country. “First we would map the works and areas of works of the 109 INGOs which have been working in various fields since long.

“Then we will study the activities of the NGOs so that the government’s development activities do not overlap,” he said.

Launching the world population report in London today, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the UNFPA, said, “Developing countries that have invested in family planning, smaller families and slower population growth have achieved higher productivity, more savings and more productive investment.

“Still, fertility and population growth are highest in the 49 least developed countries,” she maintained.

The report has underlined the threat of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its close ties with poverty. “The poor people are vulnerable to HIV infection because they are defenceless to all health risks; they lack knowledge and power to protect themselves; and they have less access to information and services for HIV/AIDS prevention,” stated a press release of the UNFPA.

During the launching ceremony, Assistant Minister for Population and Environment Gopal Dahit and specialist at the UNFPA G. Giridhar spoke while UNFPA representative in Nepal J. Bill Musoke gave a welcome speech.