his year, the World Population Day seeks to highlight the need to advance gender equality. Hence, its theme: “What women and girls want matters.”

In this regard, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities brings its data, experience and stories to support womenfolk around the globe. The process begins by listening to the voices of women and other marginalised people and introducing laws and policies that enable them to exercise their fundamental rights and choices.

According to the United Nations, the world is not headed in the direction where it would be able to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals because efforts to implement those have not kept up with the speed with which the human population is growing.

A growing population could add to the stress on the environment, transportation, natural resources and energy in situations where governments would fail to act strategically or they’d be late to implement suitable, adaptive reforms. (For the uninitiated, the SDGs include specific quantitative targets on mortality, reproductive health and education for all girls by the year 2030, measures that will directly or indirectly affect future demographic trends; the state of women within their homes and communities in particular.)

As per UN data, the world population is increasing by approximately 83 million people annually. The situation of health and rights around the world, especially that of women is quite distressing, to say the least. Women make up 49.7 percent of the world’s population, yet they are often ignored in discussions on demographics. Too often their rights are violated in policies on population. More than 40 percent of women around the world aren’t even allowed to make decisions about their reproductive health and rights. One woman dies every two minutes due to pregnancy or childbirth complications.

On April 15, the UN’s population division announced that the world’s population had reached 8 billion. There is an urgent need to support sustainable economic practices, corporate responsibility, fair health, education access and voluntary family planning. This dramatic growth is driven largely by the increasing number of people who reach their reproductive age, and is supplemented by major changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanisation and accelerating migration.

These trends are expected to have far-reaching implications. Population Matters declares that with more than 8 billion people on the planet, it’s never been more important to start engaging people in population conversations.

Pakistan is passing through one of the most difficult times in its socioeconomic and political history. For the world’s fifth most populous nation, its heavy debts and floods-wasted economy appears to be the biggest worry at present. The cash-strapped country is facing record 30 percent inflation and expects to sign a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund to avoid a potential default.

The current population of Pakistan is 245,145,075, based on the projections of the latest UN data. The current growth rate in Pakistan is close to 2 percent, with a net increase of one person every seven seconds. Pakistan’s health and educational infrastructures are ooorly funded, and experts keep questioning the quality of what is on offer. With a weak economy and low growth, food insecurity and unemployment present further challenges. The population of Pakistan represents 2.56 percent of the world’s total population.

If population growth is not managed, experts say, it will worsen these negative trends as resources are hard-pressed and improvements in service delivery fail to keep up with demand. The contraceptive prevalence rate is 27 percent which is very low in the list of developing countries. Only about 19 percent employ modern methods, according to the UNFPA. Every third pregnancy in Pakistan is unplanned, says a 2011 Wilson Centre report. So the main priority, with efforts by the public and private sectors, has been to ensure that people know about family planning and can easily access contraceptives.

There is a close association between population and poverty. All evidence points to the fact that if you look at big households, there is a strong chance that these will be poor. Today, two thirds of Pakistanis are under the age of 30. It is one of the largest youth populations in the world. Despair and frustration among the young not being able to find employment can cause criminal tendencies and give rise to violent and anti-state activities.

There will be economic consequences, as resources are stretched beyond realistic limits for housing, food, education, health, jobs and the infrastructure that goes with it. When we look at the reality of development progress made by Pakistan, the country made very little progress in achieving the SDGs. The reasons attributed to this failure include lack of planning and resources, absence of political will, high incidence of conflict as well as donor-driven agenda.

On this World Population Day, a statement from the UNFPA executive director, Dr Natalia Kanem, says, “Too many women and girls have been left out… Even as we accelerate efforts to fulfill the promise of the ICPD and the Sustainable Development Goals, healthier lives remain out of reach for far too many people, especially those from underserved communities. To make reproductive rights for all women and girls the path to a sustainable future, everyone will have to realise their potential.”

The writer is a playwright and a freelance journalist. He can be reached at pashajaved1@gmail.com. He also blogs at soulandland.com