On 11 July 2025, the international community and Arab countries observe World Population Day under the theme: "Empowering Young People to Create the Families They Want in a Fair and Hopeful World." The theme reflects a legitimate aspiration and a fundamental right for every young man and woman in our region—the right to build a family and lead a stable life within fair, supportive humanitarian and economic conditions.
The Arab region is undergoing profound demographic, political, and economic transformations, marked by major challenges including armed conflicts, economic crises, and the impacts of climate change. Amid these difficulties, young people—who represent more than half of the population in many Arab countries—remain the hope of the present, the architects of the future, a demographic asset, and the cornerstone of achieving development and stability.
However, ongoing and protracted crises continue to impact the life choices of youth in areas affected by conflict, displacement, and occupation. In particular, Palestinian youth have, for decades, been deprived of their most basic human rights, including the right to live in safety, access education, secure employment opportunities, and establish stable families. The persistence of occupation, repeated escalations, and severe restrictions on freedom of movement and dignified living conditions represent some of the most formidable barriers preventing Palestinian youth from exercising their natural right to form free and secure families in their homeland.
On this occasion, and through the Arab Council for Population and Development, we underscore the urgent need to comprehensively empower youth—especially women and girls—by ensuring access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. Such empowerment creates an enabling environment that supports the free and responsible choice to form a family, the essential nucleus of society. It must also guarantee access to reproductive health services and information, as integral components of human rights and comprehensive development.
The General Secretariat of the League of Arab States reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to gender equality, health, and social justice. It further calls for the formulation and implementation of national and regional policies that are responsive to the needs of youth and that strengthen their active participation in decision-making—particularly in the areas of population, development, and peace.
Empowering young people to build the families they envision must be at the heart of development dialogue, intergenerational cooperation, and efforts to establish a just and sustainable peace in our region.
