Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Ba­by girls Na­gris from Ut­tar Pradesh, Dan­i­ca May from Mani­la and Muth­mali from Sri Lan­ka are among some of the new­borns yes­ter­day when the world pop­u­la­tion reached the sev­en bil­lion mark.The sev­en bil­lionth to be born re­mains dif­fi­cult to iso­late since all new­borns yes­ter­day are be­ing de­scribed as the "sev­en bil­lionth."Five ba­bies are born every sec­ond on the plan­et.Ba­bies ac­cred­it­ed the ti­tle were born in coun­tries such as the Philip­pines, In­dia, Sri Lan­ka, Cam­bo­dia and Bangladesh.

On Oc­to­ber 12, 1999 the Unit­ed Na­tions named Ad­nan Mevic of Bosnia as the world's six bil­lionth in­hab­i­tant.There­fore, in 12 years' time the world pop­u­la­tion grew by one bil­lion.The State of the World Pop­u­la­tion 2011 re­port pub­lished by the Unit­ed Na­tions Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) said how peo­ple re­spond now will de­ter­mine whether the world will have a healthy, sus­tain­able and pros­per­ous fu­ture or one that will be marked by in­equal­i­ties, en­vi­ron­men­tal de­cline and eco­nom­ic set­backs.

The re­port fo­cus­es on coun­tries such as Chi­na, Ethiopia, Nige­ria and Mozam­bique.The UNF­PA has set up a glob­al move­ment for hu­man­i­ty called 7 Bil­lion Ac­tions to high­light pos­i­tive ac­tion by in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions.UNF­PA ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dr Ba­batunde Os­o­time­hin said the sev­en bil­lion mile­stone is a chal­lenge, an op­por­tu­ni­ty and a call to ac­tion.

Os­o­time­hin said: "With plan­ning and the right in­vest­ments in peo­ple now-to em­pow­er them to make choic­es that are not on­ly good for them­selves, but al­so for our glob­al com­mons-our world of sev­en bil­lion can have thriv­ing, sus­tain­able cities, pro­duc­tive labour forces that fu­el economies and youth pop­u­la­tions that con­tribute to the well-be­ing of their so­ci­eties."

He said young peo­ple are the ones hold­ing the key to the fu­ture with the po­ten­tial to trans­form the glob­al po­lit­i­cal land­scape and to pro­pel economies through their cre­ativ­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ties for in­no­va­tion.An­oth­er UNF­PA re­port which fo­cus­es on Women and Girls in a World of Sev­en Bil­lion states that the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of women and girls' rights are para­mount.It said: "With­out par­tic­i­pa­tion of half of the world's pop­u­la­tion and with­out them be­ing treat­ed in a fair, eq­ui­table and just way, the chal­lenges in a world of sev­en bil­lion will con­tin­ue to mul­ti­ply."

In Trinidad and To­ba­go the pop­u­la­tion pro­jec­tion for 2025 is 1,294,347.Ac­cord­ing to About, T&T To­day which is an on­line pub­li­ca­tion of sta­tis­ti­cal in­for­ma­tion put to­geth­er by the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing, the Min­istry of Gen­der Af­fairs and the Unit­ed Na­tions in T&T, it is ex­pect­ed that the pop­u­la­tion will rise from 1,262,366 in 2000 to a peak of 1,310,888 in 2015–an in­crease of 3.84 per cent.The da­ta pre­dict the pop­u­la­tion will ex­pe­ri­ence a de­crease of 1.26 per cent from 2015 to 2025.