World population to hit 8 billion this year
People carry out business in downtown Kampala in 2021. PHOTO/ ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The UN dashboard indicates that Uganda’s population will also hit 48.4m this year.
- The average global lifespans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years in 2019.
- But in Uganda, the lifespan is estimated by the government to be at around 63 years.
Global population is projected to hit 8 billion this year amid rising hunger levels, the United Nations (UN) announced ahead of today’s World Population Day.
The global population reached the 7 billion mark in 2011, and it was at 7.9 billion in 2021, with the expectation that it will swell further to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100, according to the UN.
“Reaching a global population of eight billion is a numerical landmark, but our focus must always be on people. In the world we strive to build, 8 billion people means 8 billion opportunities to live dignified and fulfilled lives,” Mr António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said in a statement.
The UN in the statement attributed the dramatic growth in population to increasing numbers of people surviving to reproductive age, major changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanisation and accelerating migration.
“These trends will have far-reaching implications for generations to come. The recent past has seen enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; by 2015, total fertility for the world had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman,” the UN statement reads.
The average global lifespans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years in 2019. But in Uganda, the lifespan is estimated by the government to be at around 63 years.
Information on the UN dashboard indicates that Uganda’s population will also hit 48.4m this year, making it the fourth most populated among the East African Community member states.
The Democratic Republic of Congo will be the most populated at 95.2m, Tanzania (63.3m) and Kenya (56m).
However, the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) projects that the population of the country will hit 44.2m this year, contradicting the UN projection.
Uganda’s National Population Council (NPC) said in an update that this year’s World Population Day celebration will be in Kumi under the theme ‘Mindset Change for Wealth
Creation: Ending Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy.’ Uganda is struggling to reduce the population growth so as to benefit from the demographic dividends, by reducing births each year so that the country’s young dependent population declines in relation to the working-age population.
In a related development, the UN in another report four days ago indicated that the number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as many as 828 million in 2021, an increase of about 46 million since 2020, and 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Uganda, there have been reports of death caused by hunger in Karamoja and some parts of Lango.
