World Population Day 2011: The Year of Seven Billion

The UN Population Fund established World Population Day as a day of awareness about global population in 1987. As we approach seven billion just 24 years later, the UN is kicking off their 7 Billion Actions campaign, designed to raise awareness about the resource, health, and environmental challenges raised by our numbers. Population and its more detailed cousin-indicator, demography, impact the world in a great many ways – from contributing to resource scarcity and environmental destruction to creating social imbalances that can lead to civil instability.


Check out a few of New Security Beat’s most recent stories on population to get a sense of why it’s such an important but oft-simplified and misunderstood indicator and where it matters most.
  • One in Three People Will Live in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2100, Says UN
  • Ten Billion: UN Updates Population Projections, Assumptions on Peak Growth Shattered
  • Tunisia Predicted: Demography and the Probability of Liberal Democracy in the Greater Middle East
  • Watch: Demographic Security 101 With Elizabeth Leahy Madsen
  • Yemen Beyond the Headlines: Population, Health, Natural Resources, and Institutions
  • Guest Contributor Michael Kugelman: Pakistan’s Population Bomb Defused?
  • Dot-Mom: USAID Egypt’s Health and Population Legacy Review
  • Watch: Eric Kaufmann on How Demography Is Enhancing Religious Fundamentalism
  • Consumption and Global Growth: How Much Does Population Contribute to Carbon Emissions?
    • Photo Credit: “World population,” courtesy of flickr user Arenamontanus.