By Suenia de Azevedo

The first required task for my internship at the Alliance of Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR) was an article regarding the 2023 World Population Day. The date is celebrated as an awareness of populational problems, focusing on environmental and developmental questions in society. Created by the United Nations in 1989, the first day of world population became official on July 11, 1990, in partnership with governments and civil society. Because societal progress is not universal, social inequalities are, thus, highlighted in some regions, which leads to the need for increased attention to them. Thus, the collected data are essential to formulate politics based on individual needs.

In November 2022, the world population reached the milestone of 8 billion people. In order to comprehend the impact of the increase in population number for the countries, especially for the vulnerable population, in 2023, the theme of World Population Day is “Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities.” For Ghana, the special theme is framed as “unleashing the power of gender equality to spur development.”

Women are the majority of the population on a global scale and represent 50.9% of the Ghanaian population. This makes addressing gender inequalities problems imperative as they directly impact Ghanaian socioeconomic development considering these issues affect the majority of the population. Some examples of these issues are a lack of agency regarding women’s own bodies and reproductive health rights, exclusion from leadership positions and educational spaces, and being vulnerable to psychological and physical violence. It is important to note the improvement in some key indicators such as teenage pregnancy which was slightly reduced from 2.9% in 2014 to 2.5% in 2017 while also denouncing the low achievement of indicators such as sexual rights for the vulnerable population.

On the other hand, exploring power and gender equality topics for the 2023 Ghanaian World Population Day collaborates with the previous gains in the environment of freedom that women and girls have to exercise their choices and rights. For that, academic researchers, government partners, other UN agencies, media, legislature, and the private sector must engage in the awareness of women and girls’ potential to overcome the gender inequality issue. As an example, the work that I have been doing at the Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR) in Ghana focuses on the mission of safeguarding women and children regarding sex and gender-based violence through their combative projects working close to that vulnerable population in order to protect them from reproductive violence.