News Selection – World Population

10/2/2019: Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced tax benefits and subsidies to encourage families to have more children. He said the policy was meant to create more Hungarians instead of promoting EU-backed immigration.

Source: DW

5/2/2019: UNFPA Nigeria lost over 60% of its family planning funds within one year, in a country that is facing a potentially crippling population boom.

Source: Devex

3/1/2019: Egypt's population now exceeds 100 million and a government programme called “two is enough” has been launched to encourage people to limit family size. But Egypt has a long way to go in persuading its people. Source: The Guardian

26/:12/2018: Declining fertility rates around the world should be cause for celebration, not alarm, a leading expert has said, warning that the focus on boosting populations was outdated and potentially bad for women. Source: The Guardian

13/11/2018: The latest annual report from the Family Planning 2020 Partnership concludes that it will be impossible to achieve the target of reaching 120 million more women and girls in the world’s 69 poorest countries with modern contraceptives by 2020. Source: Devex

12/11/2018: A groundbreaking new report on family planning in the world’s 69 lowest-income countries shows more women and adolescent girls than ever before are making the voluntary choice to use contraception in their everyday lives. Source: Family Planning 2020

17/10/2018: Continued progress on decreasing fertility rates and family size is dependent on health systems providing universally accessible reproductive health services, according to the United Nations Population Fund. Source: Devex

17/10/2018: According to new UN estimates, the world’s population is set to grow by 2.2 billion between now and 2050. More than half of that growth is likely to be in sub-Saharan Africa. Source: UN News

10/10/2018: Fifty years ago, Botswanan women would have seven children on average. Now they have fewer than three. It’s one of the fastest falling fertility rates anywhere in the world – a dramatic decline that merits scrutiny. Source: The Guardian

Tread Softly Comment: This Guardian feature pulls together the range of factors that have contributed to the widely recognised advance in sexual and reproductive health rights in Botswana. Any presumption that such success can be replicated throughout Africa should note the unsettling aspects lurking at the end of the article - problems in reaching the poorest areas of the country and the closure of family planning centres imposed by the "global gag" rule which has been revived by the Trump administration. Relevant Briefing: Population Policies

26/9/2018: Africa's population is growing rapidly and is set to double by 2050. How are African countries changing attitudes towards birth control and preparing for the future? Source: DW

Tread Softly Comment: Conflict in DRC; unshakeable cultural attitudes in Nigeria, unhelpful presidential intervention in Tanzania, investment in reproductive health services in Rwanda and Ethiopia - this concise review of Africa's population growth serves a reminder that every country needs to be understood in its own context. Relevant Briefing: Population Policies