Today is World Population Day.

It is marked every year, but this year’s day is of special significance.

In 1994, 30 years ago, the government delegates from 179 countries around the world got together in Cairo, Egypt, to adopt the Programme of Action on Sustainable Development of Population at the International Conference on Population and Development, which was followed by several international events and agreements. However, goals remain only partially realized on proportionated development of population and universal access to sexual and reproductive health to all people.

At present, most of the countries with a fast population growth rate are among the poorest countries, which creates a number of challenges such as eradication of poverty, gender equality, fight against famine and malnutrition, and quality improvement in healthcare and education.

On the contrary, the birth rate is falling in over 50 countries in the world, leading to shortage of labour and rapid aging. Aging causes social and financial problems in providing healthcare, subsidies and social security for senior citizens. This in turn has a negative impact on economic growth in relevant countries.

With an understanding that the root cause of all these negative impacts is the lack of the requisite data systems to track and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals on providing all people with access to good health and rights, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) set this year’s theme for WPD as “Embracing the power of inclusive data towards a resilient and equitable future for all”.

Over the past 30 years since the International Conference on Population and Development, many achievements have been made in the DPRK in its efforts to settle the population issue and give women universal access to reproductive health.

Among the practical tasks to be carried out in the sector of development of population, we should take social and economic measures to cope with shrinking and aging population on a long-term basis.

We should also sufficiently provide hospitals at all levels with essential medicines and equipment for reproductive health service and improve the service quality by introducing advanced medical sci-tech hits and steadily developing them.

In this regard, we held a meeting to mark World Population Day with a theme of “Sustainable development of population and importance of demographic statistics”, which accords with the theme of the UNFPA and the actual conditions of our country. Disseminated at the event attended by officials from commissions, ministries and relevant units were such essays as “The state of population change in our country and its factor”, “The state of fertility decline in our country and its influence on the future population development”, “The state of population ageing in our country and main characteristics of global aging” and “Importance of demographic statistics in sustainable development of population”.

We will make further efforts to bring about substantial improvement in providing access to health and rights to women, including pregnant women and nursing mothers, and work closely with UNFPA and other international organizations.

Yang Song Il, section chief of the Population Centre of the DPRK