The largest convening on population and development in Africa, the African Population Conference, was held in Entebbe, Uganda on the 18th-22nd of November 2019. This year’s edition was themed: Harnessing Africa’s Population Dynamics for Sustainable Development: 25 years after Cairo and Beyond.
The significance of this gathering is to bring together researchers, policymakers, program implementers, civil society donors, and sectoral influencers to discuss issues relevant to the African population, encompassing (but not limited to) national, regional, and continental investments to address rapid urbanization, population growth, sexual and reproductive health, technology, youth, the demographic dividend, and capacity building.
The impact of this devotion gave rise to the participation of Mr. Binuyo Olutomiwa, the Executive Director of The Sapphires Development Initiative, a second-year student of the Master’s Programme Population and Development, participated in the conference where he had presented a paper on “Why National Population Policies Fail: Nigeria as a Case Study”.
After the mind-boggling event, He shares his impressions about the forum:
“The African Population Conference was an interesting one which presented me the privilege to meet, interact and network with several leading academic professionals from different parts of the globe. I had the opportunity of physically meeting one of my role models in the field, the executive director of the UNFPA, Natalia Kanem, as she gave the keynote speech on capacity strengthening in African population data. During my presentation on the challenges of the Nigerian population policies, I was able to interact with some Nigerian policymakers who took my recommendations back home to be looked into for implementation. It was indeed a productive conference which would positively contribute to the sustainable development of Africa.”
The Sapphires Development Initiative (TSDI) whose aim is to maximally achieve the sustainable development goals in our spheres of influence through harnessing the potentials of individuals shows its tenacious support by promoting this activity in Africa, most especially in Nigeria, where there’s a rapid population growth over time.
