World Population Day: July 11, 2002

The last century witnessed a staggering boom in world population, from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to just over 6 billion in 1999 - but this rapid growth has begun to slow, due, in part, to increased access to family planning. More and more women are taking advantage of reproductive health care.

Challenges remain, however. There are still about 150 million women in the world with an unmet need for family planning services. Significant growth is still taking place in many regions, where increasing numbers of people must share such finite resources as fresh water and cropland.

• WATER: Currently, 434 million people face either water stress or scarcity. For growing numbers of people in the Middle East and in much of Africa, the lack of available fresh water is a chronic concern that is becoming more widespread.
  
• CROPLAND: The number of people living in countries where cultivated land is critically scarce is projected to increase to between 600 million and 986 million in 2025. The food that feeds the future will be raised mostly on
  today 's cropland. Easing world hunger becomes increasingly difficult as the
  amount of arable land decreases.
  
• BIODIVERSITY: More than 1.1 billion people live in areas that conservationists consider the most rich in non-human species and the most threatened by human activities. While these areas comprise about 12 percent of the planet's land surface, they hold nearly 20 percent of its human population.

One strategy to help slow population growth is to make family planning services available to all - women, men and young people who seek them. These services are immensely popular and help couples have the smaller families they increasingly want, while saving the lives of women and children put at risk by unplanned and frequent pregnancy.

Right now the choice to use family planning services is being threatened by the U.S. government's withholding of funds to the United Nations Population Fund. This is impairing the agency's ability to fulfill its critical mission of providing universal access to reproductive health care, including family planning, particularly in low-income countries.

Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.