联合国呼吁应对70亿人口带来的挑战

The State of World Population 2011 report comes from the United Nations Population Fund, also known as the UNFPA.

Richard Kollodge is one of the authors of the report.

"First, we're living longer, twenty years longer on average than we did in the middle of last century. Our children are healthier, and more of them are thriving into adulthood. More than one in two of us now live in the city. There're now 1.8 billion young people around the world – this is the largest youth cohort in human history. The world is graying. Nearly 900 million people are now over the age of sixty, and that number is expected to grow."

Kollodge says the picture of the population around the world today is a collage of diverse human experiences, trends, achievements and contradictions.

"For example, more families are at least two times smaller today than they were in the 1960s. Our numbers continue to rise, and while progresses being made to reduce extreme poverty, the gaps between rich and poor are growing almost everywhere."

The report notes that roughly 215 million women of child-bearing age in developing countries lack access to voluntary family planning.

Richard Kollodge also points out that millions of girls and boys in those same countries have little access to sex education and information on how to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.

"We need to educate and empower girls and women to fully participate in society, and to be able to make informed reproductive decisions, and whatever we do, man and boys must be part of the solution that future that is sustainable is one that will be built on equal rights and opportunities."

The report recommends that countries around the world to more to invest in the health and education of young people as a way to ensure future economic growth and development.

The report itself of a wide-sweeping review of countries around the world, ranging from China and India, with their massive populations, to Finland and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

For CRI, this is Shen Ting reporting from the UN Headquarters of New York.