You are here

UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office held "7 Billion: Balance, Rights and Equity" regional expert meetings in Yerevan from 19 to 21 October, that brought together some of the most reputed international demographers such as Valeriy Elizarov, Head of the Centеr for the Population Studies, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Sergei Scherbov, Director of Demographic Analysis at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, Anatoly Vishnevsky Director of the Institute of Demography of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and other prominent demographers.

On the first day of the meetings a press conference was organized devoted to burning demographic issues for the region, such as fertility, migration, aging, and mortality.

Speakers of the press conference were Thea Fierens, Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, UNFPA, Zahidul Huque, Representative for Turkey and Country Director for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, UNFPA, Anatoly Vishnevsky, Director, Institute of Demography, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and Ella Libanova, Director, Institute for Demography and Social Studies, National Academy of Sciences, Kiev.

“In the upcoming two days we think and we work and we analyze how to get better policies in place to address the issues of the growing or declining population”, said Thea Fierens. 

On the third day of the conference, the experts were joined by high-level officials from the Government of Armenia to discuss the country’s specific demographic challenges and effective policy responses for influencing them. 

Throughout the region, population decline, ageing, fertility, mortality and migration trends interweave to form an enormously heterogeneous demographic picture. In the European part of the former Soviet Union, population size is expected to fall by half over the course of this century. While the European part of the region is likely to see its population decline to half, Central Asia’s population is likely to grow by 50 per cent. The potential effects of such processes rise questions of national identity, security, migration flows as well as economic and overall development concerns that demand answers, and this event was a step towards providing such answers. 


Short biogaphies of experts

Coverage of the meetings on UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional web site