Monday, July 14 / 17:15 - 18:45 • Plaza Ballroom - Merivale Side

Session 44
UNFPA Plenary on A Population Data Emergency: The Silent Threat to Global Development

The 21st century has brought rapid advances in population data systems—accelerating data processing, expanding data types (including geospatial, biometric, and digital trace data), and enabling cost-effective data generation. Yet a silent emergency threatens to reverse these gains: a critical deficit in timely, reliable, and disaggregated population data. This IPC 2025 plenary will address these urgent challenges and explore how the global community can rebuild capacity, restore trust, and ensure population data systems are inclusive, ethical, and fit for purpose in a rapidly changing world. The session will underscore the data crisis’s implications for human security, equitable development, and effective governance. A keynote address by UNFPA will provide a global overview of the shortfalls in the 2020 census round, the implications of declining investment in foundational data systems, and the growing demand for data that reflects evolving demographic realities—particularly youth aspirations, reproductive choices, and aging. A panel of leading experts and practitioners will follow, examining the impact of defunding major household survey programmes like DHS, the use of administrative and geospatial data, and the potential of AI and digital trace data for demographic research and policymaking. Panelists will also propose strategies to build resilient, future-ready population data ecosystems. As the world advances toward the 2030 Agenda and beyond, this session issues an urgent call for action—mobilizing researchers, governments, and international organizations to reverse funding shortfalls and reimagine population data systems as essential infrastructure for sustainable development.

Chair: Alessio Cangiano, Fonds des Nations Unies pour la Population (UNFPA)

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