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STORY: UN / COMMISSION ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
TRT: 03:28
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 13 APRIL 2026, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations Headquarters
13 APRIL 2026, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, conference room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Technology has reshaped almost every part of human life, from smartphones to social media, from artificial intelligence to biotechnology. Digital tools now shape how we live, how we work, and how we relate to one another. Population and sustainable development have been transformed by that shift as well. These innovations have enormous potential to accelerate progress on the ICPD program of action. They are making it easier to analyse population data, treat illness, strengthen advocacy and widen access to education.”
4. Wide shot, conference room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The risks posed by digital technologies are significant and the gaps are widening. In high income countries, 93 percent of people use the internet. In the least developed countries, that figure falls to 39 percent. Within countries, those gaps follow similar lines rich and poor, urban and rural, old and young. The deepest divide and the most persistent is between women and men. In low-income countries, only 21 percent of women are online. Women make up just 1 in 4 tech workers, and that has direct consequences on the lives and the safety of women and girls.”
6. Wide shot, conference room applause
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Diene Keita, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“We do not only generate data. We help countries translate evidence into policies and norms into actions. We uphold global standards on sexual reproductive health and rights, gender equality and data protection, while strengthening national systems to deliver on them. And we ensure that research does not remain abstract but reaches communities, decision makers and the last mile.”
8. Wide shot, conference room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Diene Keita, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“Accurate, timely and disaggregated data is not merely a nice thing to have. It is strategic infrastructure for national planning and investment. As we enter the 2030 census round. The message is simple: Everyone must be counted because everyone counts. Beyond counting, we must understand. This means strengthening national statistics system, civil registry and vital statistics, and investing in population research capacity, particularly in developing countries.”
10. Wide shot, conference room, Gambia’s Vice President B.S Jallow walks up to podium
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Mohammed B.S Jallow, Vice President, The Gambia
“We are making deliberate strides in digital transformation, guided by the ICPD Programme of Action’s emphasis on data, research, and evidence-based planning. Central to this effort is the development of an integrated data platform designed to consolidate population, health, education, and socio-economic data into a unified and interoperable system. This platform will enhance real-time data sharing, strengthen coordination, and improve the efficiency and responsiveness of public service delivery. Our progress is further demonstrated by the successful conduct of The Gambia’s first digital Population and Housing Census in 2024—an important milestone in modernizing our statistical systems and improving the availability of timely, disaggregated data.”
12. Wide shot, conference room applause, Jallow walks away
Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed today (13 Apr) said technological innovations “have enormous potential to accelerate progress” on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) program of action, as “they are making it easier to analyse population data, treat illness, strengthen advocacy and widen access to education.”
Addressing the plenary of the fifty-ninth session of the UN Commission on Population and Development, Mohammed said, “technology has reshaped almost every part of human life, from smartphones to social media, from artificial intelligence to biotechnology” and population and sustainable development “have been transformed by that shift as well.”
She noted that the risks posed by digital technologies are also “significant and the gaps are widening.”
The Deputy Secretary-General said “in high income countries, 93 percent of people use the internet. In the least developed countries, that figure falls to 39 percent. Within countries, those gaps follow similar lines rich and poor, urban and rural, old and young.”
The deepest and most persistent divide, she pointed out, “is between women and men,” as “in low-income countries, only 21 percent of women are online” and “women make up just 1 in 4 tech workers.”
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Diene Keita told the meeting that UNFPA, not only generates data, but also helps countries “translate evidence into policies and norms into actions.”
Keita said, “we uphold global standards on sexual reproductive health and rights, gender equality and data protection, while strengthening national systems to deliver on them. And we ensure that research does not remain abstract but reaches communities, decision makers and the last mile.”
She said, “accurate, timely and disaggregated data is not merely a nice thing to have. It is strategic infrastructure for national planning and investment.”
As we enter the 2030 census round, Keita said, “everyone must be counted because everyone counts,” adding that “beyond counting, we must understand. “
This, she said, “means strengthening national statistics system, civil registry and vital statistics, and investing in population research capacity, particularly in developing countries.”
Giving a keynote address, the Gambia’s Vice-President, Mohammed B.S Jallow said his country is making “deliberate strides in digital transformation, guided by the ICPD Programme of Action’s emphasis on data, research, and evidence-based planning.”
Central to this effort, Jallow said, is “the development of an integrated data platform designed to consolidate population, health, education, and socio-economic data into a unified and interoperable system,” a platform that {“will enhance real-time data sharing, strengthen coordination, and improve the efficiency and responsiveness of public service delivery.”
He also noted “the successful conduct of The Gambia’s first digital Population and Housing Census in 2024—an important milestone in modernizing our statistical systems and improving the availability of timely, disaggregated data.
The theme for the fifty-ninth session is "Population, technology and research in the context of sustainable development."
The ICPD took place in Cairo in 1994, where representatives from 179 governments adopted a transformative Programme of Action. This landmark conference shifted the focus from mere population control to a rights-based approach that prioritizes individual dignity, reproductive health, and gender equality.
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