Every day in developing countries, 20,000 girls below age 18 give birth. Nine in 10 of these births occur within marriage or a union. This has consequences on the health, education, employment and rights of an untold millions of girls. What are the challenges of adolescent pregnancy, and what can we do to ensure girls have a healthy and safe transition into adulthood?

• Resources

This publication highlights the importance of the ICPD Programme of Action, the "Cairo+5" discussions and subsequent experience and agreements as we mobilize to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The papers in this report are based on an edited selection of presentations made at two meetings on population censuses. The first was the UNFPA/PARIS21 International Expert Group Meeting on Mechanisms for Ensuring Continuity of 10-Year Population Censuses: Strategies for Reducing Census Costs held in Pretoria on 26-29 November 2001 and the second meeting was a UNFPA In-House Capacity Building Workshop on Population Censuses: New Directions and Cost Saving Strategies held in Princeton, New Jersey on 21-23 October 2002.

Countries are making real progress in carrying out a bold global action plan that links poverty alleviation to women's rights and universal access to reproductive health. Ten years into the new era opened by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, the quality and reach of family planning programmes have improved, safe motherhood and HIV prevention efforts are being scaled up, and governments embrace the ICPD Programme of Action as an essential blueprint for realizing development goals.