Today is World Population Day, an annual event convened by the UNFPA in conjunction with other parts of the UN system to raise awareness about important population and development issues.  This year's World Population Day is focused on the pressing needs of youth around the world.  This theme is particularly timely. 

As the largest youth generation in history – at approximately 3 billion people, nearly half of the total global population – today's youth urgently need education and resources that will equip them for their futures.  This education must include sexual and reproductive health education if global youth are going to have any hope of overcoming the challenges they will face, particularly widespread poverty, a growing HIV pandemic, and a lack of basic health care services.

Meeting all of these needs moves beyond a simple focus on population – it is essential to protecting the basic human rights of this young generation and to ensuring them a hopeful future.  World Population Day provides an occasion to recognize the urgency of their interrelated needs.  Sarah Craven of UNFPA gives us a helpful lens for looking at these issues in an op-ed today: "Let's just take care of the people, and the population issue will take care of itself." 

For more information about today's global youth and how sexual and reproductive health issues affect their lives, Advocates for Youth and the Population Reference Bureau have teamed up to create the Growing Up Global Advocacy Kit.  Growing Up Global is a comprehensive report on today's youth generation created by the National Academies and the Institute of Medicine.  The Advocacy Kit provides analysis of the data in the report in easily accessible fact sheets, along with advocacy suggestions and policy recommendations.