World population to reach 10 billion by 2100

The current world population of close to 7 billion is projected to reach 10.1 billion in the next ninety years, reaching 9.3 billion by the middle of this century, according to the medium variant of the 2010 Revision of World Population Prospects, the official United Nations population projections prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which was launched May 3rd. Much of this increase is projected to come from the high-fertility countries, which comprise 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania, and four in Latin America.

The director of the United Nations population division, Hania Zlotnik, said the world’s fastest-growing countries, and the wealthy Western nations that help finance their development, face a choice about whether to renew their emphasis on programs that encourage family planning. Over the past decade, foreign aid to pay for contraceptives—$238 million in 2009—has barely budged, according to United Nations estimates.

Read the UN press release here. A New York Ties article on the repot is available here.

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