Ghana marks symbolic birth of eight billionth baby at Ridge Hospital

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) joined the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the United Nations Pop­ulation Fund (UNFPA) to mark the birth of the eight billionth baby at the Greater Accra Regional Hospi­tal in Accra yesterday.

The baby girl was born five minutes after mid­night at the Ridge Hospital on Tuesday.

The symbolic ceremony was witnessed by other partners such as the National Popu­lation Council, the National Development Planning Commission, and the Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS).

In addition, was RIPS's pre-launch of a book on Ghana’s population.

The book focuses on the demography of the country and among others, highlights marriage, and child and maternal mortality issues.

Ghana’s population stands at 30.8 million per the 2021 Population and Housing Census.

The world population reached eight billion yesterday and the historic day is being celebrated across the world.

The Country Representative of UNFPA, Mr. Barnabas Tisa, in a speech read on his behalf by the International Operations Manager, Ritesh Mistry, said Tuesday, No­vember 15, 2022, was an important day in the history of the world.

He said a world of eight billion presented the world with eight billion possibilities and opportunities towards the world the global community aspired.

In Ghana, he said data from the 2021 census, indicated that life expectancy had increased from the last census in 2010. Ac­cording to data from the 2021 PHC life ex­pectancy for Ghana had risen to 64.42 years in 2021 from 64.17 years in 2020.

That, Mr. Tisa, said meant that Ghana had reached the stage where people were living longer, and fewer women were dying through childbirth resulting in a reduction in mater­nal and child mortality.

“While acknowledging this historic day in population growth, we must not only pay attention to the challenges and the gas asso­ciated with the growing population, rather we must take advantage of the opportu­nity to reap the demographic dividend by socio-economically investing in the popula­tion, especially, young people,” he said.