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POPULATION COUNCIL
The United Nations has subsequently sponsored the organization of intergovernmental global conferences on population issues at 10-year intervals. The conferences have highlighted the linkages between population growth and development. The policy focus now is less on controlling the expansion of the world population, which has considerably slowed down, but on better access to and awareness of family planning to women, reproductive health as a human right, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the economic and socioeconomic consequences of the aging of populations, and international migration. See also PLANNED PARENTHOOD; POPULATION COUNCIL; POPULATION PROGRAMS OF THE UNITED NATIONS. POPULATION COUNCIL. New York–based worldwide organization established in 1972 that carries out biomedical research on human reproduction, new methods of contraception, population policies, family planning, and reproductive health. Has close ties with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). POPULATION PROGRAMS OF THE UNITED NATIONS. From its inception, the United Nations has carried out extensive activities in this field under the authority of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Commission on Population and Development and, within the secretariat, the support of the United Nations Population Division. Initially, the work of the United Nations was limited to information gathering, demographic analysis, and technical assistance in census methods. One of the outcomes of this authoritative work was to draw attention to the rapid expansion of the world population, to changes in its North-South distribution, and to the rapid increase in the number of older persons. As a result of the global conferences sponsored at 10-year intervals by the United Nations on population issues since 1954, the scope of the United Nations’ work on demography has expanded to encompass developmental, gender, and human rights policy concerns. No longer defined simply in terms of fertility reduction, population issues are now framed in the context of the development process, women’s equality and empowerment, safe reproductive health, and the expansion of education for girls. The regional commissions, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the