July 11 is the World Population Day.

World Population Day is an annual event for us. But this year’s event holds exceptional importance in its significance.

In 1994, 30 years back, International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo, Egypt with an eventual adoption of the ICPD PoA which stipulated for the first time in history that the ensuring of rights of women and their empowerment are a powerful motive force in addressing the population issue. This was followed by other international conferences which adopted many international conventions for the sustainable development of population.

However, the ICPD PoA goals to ensure balanced development of population and to afford all people reproductive health service across-the-board have yet to be realized.

Currently, on the global scale, countries with rapid population growth are mostly the poorest countries and in these countries, the rapid growth of population has caused a range of issues including poverty eradication, gender equality, fight against famine and malnutrition as well as improvement of medical services and quality of education, etc.

On the contrary, more than 50 countries in the world are showing a decline in birth rate and are faced with barriers in the fields of public health system, pension provision and social protection system for the elderly people due to the shortage of labor force and rapid ageing of population. This is inflicting a negative impact on the economic growth of these countries.

In its "State of World Population 2024" published in April, the UNFPA said that a woman in the southern area of the Sahara Desert, Africa, who experiences pregnancy and childbirth complications is around 130 times more likely to die from them than a woman in Western country and that the difference between living and dying can depend on where a woman gives birth.

It also indicated that the United States and the United Kingdom belong to the 19 countries estimated to have a higher maternal mortality ratio in 2020 than in 1990 and that the incidence of maternal death is multiple times higher for black women than white women in both countries.

We have achieved many successes in the work to resolve the population issue and to provide universal reproductive health for women for the last 30 years since the ICPD.

The health and rights of our women and children are legally and institutionally guaranteed through the people-centered socialist healthcare system, the Decree on Gender Equality and the Law on the Protection and Promotion of Women’s Rights.

Pyongyang Maternity Hospital and Okryu Children’s Hospital have been built in good shape to provide comprehensive health care services for women and children, and every province has a maternity hospital outfitted with the latest medical facilities.

Since 2019, we have organized refresher training for household doctors and obstetricians and gynecologists at primary health facilities to give them training courses on the early register and health care for pregnant women and on the prevention of congenital anomalies and obstetric infection in particular.

The Government of our Republic has put forward it as its inherent policy to provide our people with more civilized and healthy living conditions and to improve their well-being on a constant basis.

Thanks to the most advanced healthcare system including the universal free medical service, preventive medicine and the household doctor system, our people are making substantial contribution to the socialist construction in good health.

Our people will continue to enjoy the benefits of the socialist healthcare system and lead a healthy and happy life in coming years. We will also actively join the international community in their efforts to effect a substantial improvement in ensuring the health of women including the pregnant women and nursing mothers and in data collection.