Between 16th and 21st October EPF led a delegation of European journalists to India, where we visited a range of population projects in both urban and rural settings. The journalists came from DAPD press agency (Germany), De Volkskrant (Netherlands), Le Monde (France), El Mundo (Spain), Politiken (Denmark) and Twoj Styl (Poland).

31st October 2011 was chosen by the United Nations to mark the moment at which the world’s population passed 7 billion. As a milestone in humanity’s history EPF and UNFPA were keen to ensure that the discourse surrounding the moment would not focus solely on the environmental concerns posed by burgeoning human consumption, but also highlight how central women’s rights are to population dynamics. For this reason we organised a press trip to India - the country where the most children are born each day.

The trip started with a visit to Patna and Bodhgaya in Bihar state with the representatives of UNFPA India. Here we visited a range of projects being run by UNFPA in collaboration with the state government, which included a project empowering schoolgirls by giving them grants to buy a bike and meetings with young couples who are consciously deciding to have a small number of children. The group then moved on into Uttar Pradesh state, where we were hosted by the urban Health Initiative in Varanasi. Here we visited initiatives in an urban setting, seeing how privately funded initiatives in collaboration with the state government can help to empower women from the poorest parts of society in their reproductive choices.

EPF’s thanks go to our three hosts: UNFPA India, the Urban Health Initiative and the Indian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and development. They enabled us to gain a valuable and varied insight into the many ways in which India acting to achieve sustainable levels of population.