Freetown, Sierra Leone, 11 July 2023 - On 11 July, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) joined the global commemoration of World Population Day, a day set aside to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues, including their relations to development and the environment. 

In November 2022, the world’s population reached 8 billion people, marking a landmark demographic moment. The 2023 World Population Day theme, Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities, highlights the need to advance gender equality to help realize the dreams of all eight billion people.  

While women and girls make up half of the global population, their desires for their lives,  families, and careers are often ignored in discussions on demographics and their rights violated in population policies. The result is a world that excludes, marginalizes, and limits the potential of women and girls, hindering the achievement of a more prosperous, peaceful, and sustainable future for all people.

Around the world, gender inequality impacts on women’s and girls’ participation in education, employment and leadership positions, limits their ability to make decisions about their health and sexual and reproductive lives, and heightens their vulnerability to violence, harmful practices and preventable maternal death. More than 40 per cent of women around the world cannot make decisions on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, and only one in four women across low and middle income countries are realizing their desired fertility. 

In her statement marking World Population Day, UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem highlighted that the day is a “reminder that we can achieve the prosperous, peaceful and sustainable future envisioned by the International Conference on Population and Development and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development if we harness the power of every human being on the planet. When we unlock the full potential of women and girls, we galvanize half the leadership, ideas, innovation, and creativity to better society.”

UNFPA Sierra Leone Country Representative Nadia Rasheed noted that investing in gender equality today is an investment in our shared future. “Empowering women to exert their rights, make decisions about their reproductive health, and shape the families they want results in stronger and healthier communities and societies,” she stated. Echoing UNFPA’s 2023 State of World Population report, she called for women and girls to be empowered by societies to exert autonomy over their lives and bodies in order to enable individuals and families to thrive and to contribute to a better, more inclusive world.

Media Contacts:

Islander Kabia | Communications Unit| UNFPA Sierra Leone | e-mail: ikabia@unfpa.org