Celebrated every year on 11 July, the World Population Day was
first instituted by the Governing Council of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) in 1989 to mark the day when the
world's population reached five billion mark. Aiming to raise
awareness about the vulnerabilities faced by the world's population,
each year a unique theme is adopted to celebrate the day. Some
of the themes over the years have focused on gender equality,
education of the girl child, issues of the youth, family planning,
and adolescent health.
In 2010, as the World Population Day enters its 22nd year, the
theme adopted is one that is both unique and extremely relevant.
It is only apt that the theme for the 2010 World Population Day
celebrations is 'Everyone Counts' as this is the year that India
embarks on the process of its 15th National Census, thus calling
attention to the importance of inclusive, holistic, and universal
data.
UNFPA's theme 'Everyone Counts' aims to highlight the importance
of relevant and appropriately disaggregated data for development
research and programme intervention. Reliable data that adequately
captures the diversity of our population and takes account of
each and everyone is critical for planning policies and interventions
in the areas of health, education, infrastructure, service delivery,
and much more.
From an Indian standpoint, maintaining periodicity of population
data made available by government sources is a huge task. The
census is conducted once in every 10 years. The National Sample
Survey Organisation (NSSO) also provides annual population figures,
which from the point of view of complete enumeration, suffers
from the usual problems of a sample. Therefore, to address the
problem of systematic exclusion of certain groups from the enumeration,
certain gaps need to be plugged in sample design and collection.
TERI's multidisciplinary work ranging from designing interventions,
energy, and climate change modelling to working directly with
communities is based on thorough in-depth data, and in the process
of our research we have had to face challenges that stem from
lack of sufficient data.
Furthermore, energy and climate modelling forms an integral part
of TERI's work, and population forecasts constitute one of the
core inputs into these models. Population trends are used for
energy demand forecasts. Subsequently, population growth and distribution
patterns influence the modelling of climate change impact and
vulnerabilities of different sections of the population. In this
context of energy and climate models, the available population
forecasts available from government sources (till 2026) and the
UNPD (United Nation Population Division) (till 2050) are inadequate
since longer term forecasts are now required till 2100 and beyond.
To sum up, every aspect of human, social, and economic development
is affected by population dynamics. Therefore, more concrete actions
have to be taken to ensure good demographic data by encouraging
people to participate in various data collection efforts and subsequently
making them contribute to effective decision making.
