Reasons and Resources for Covering World Population Day

News provided by

Jul 10, 2014, 04:49 ET

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Tomorrow, July 11, is World Population Day. Anniversary stories may not always be scintillating, but population issues are vital, not as widely understood as you may think, and really need and deserve more coverage. Here's what most readers don't understand about population growth:

Global population is projected to reach 10.9 billion by 2100 BUT ONLY IF fertility rates continue to fall. Global fertility rates have fallen, but not as fast as once expected. If they level off, population could reach 27 billion by 2100.

Family planning is the key to keeping fertility rates down, and to heading off catastrophic environmental and social effects of overpopulation, from biodiversity loss to food and water crises. Without wider access to reproductive services, maternal and infant mortality will remain unacceptably high, and population will continue to mount.

For just $3.5 billion per year, we could supply contraceptives to the 222 million women in the developing world who want to avoid a pregnancy, but who are not using a modern method of contraception. That's just 0.1% of the US federal budget for 2013, and less than what FIFA expects to make in profit ($4 billion) from this year's World Cup in Brazil.

To help journalists and bloggers cover these issues, the NGO Population Institute has prepared infographic cards with short, sourced texts on the back, explaining succinctly the main environmental, economic and health issues around population growth. We hope you will view them, use them in articles and blogs (just mention Population Institute as the source), post to your networks and share with colleagues.

As additional resources the Population Institute can also submit guest blogs in short order, and the Institute's experts, president Robert Walker and public policy director Jennie Wetter, are available for comment. To request blogs, interviews or for further information, please contact Stephen Kent, [email protected], 914-589-5988.

Contacts:
Jennie Wetter [email protected] 202-544-3300 ext 108
Stephen Kent [email protected] cell 914-589-5988

SOURCE Population Institute