Think sustainable families as population hits seven billion

The end of October is expected to mark a leap in the world’s population to seven billion. The rise comes at a time nations are still battling challenges of poverty, disease, unemployment and climate change.

Granted, there has been significant progress in the quality of life, thanks to improvements in the medical, scientific and industrial fields. But even though child mortality rates might have dropped over the years, accessibility to reproductive health services continues to hamper the effective management of numbers, particularly in developing nations where a rise in population may not necessarily be accompanied by concomitant planning on the distribution and use of resources.