Overview

The Union for African Population Studies (UAPS) is a pan-African non profit scientific organization. Established through the initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) by the Third General Conference of African Demographers, Statisticians and Planners held in Addis Ababa in March 1984, in order to promote the scientific study of population in Africa. UAPS’
Headquarters (Secretariat) is located in Accra, Ghana.

Vision: To become the leader in making population discourse a central issue in human capital development in Africa.

Mission: To foster the networking of scientists, policy makers and other stakeholders in population and development in order to improve research capacity and promote evidence based population policies and programs in Africa.

Objectives: The main objective of UAPS is to promote research and the utilization of findings to improve policies and programs on population and development in Africa. The specific objectives of the Union are to:
• Support the training of the next generation of researchers;
• Link scholars for knowledge sharing through various forms of networking;
• Promote evidence based policies and programs;
• Promote dialogue between population and development experts and policy makers; and
• Foster the visibility of scientific research on African population

Core Programs: Recognizing the challenges and the positive role that the Union can play in the development of Africa, it has identified the following areas as programme priority areas for the next four years:
• Continuing Education for members
• Promoting Networking and Information Sharing
• Promoting Scientific Research and Publications
• Promoting use of Research Evidence in Policies and Programmes

African Population Conference: The African Population Conference is convened once every four years by UAPS to provide a platform for knowledge sharing on key population, health and development issues facing the African continent. The Fifth African Population Conference’s (5APC) theme was Emerging issues in Population and development in Africa, which was timely, given that the African continent continues to exhibit the highest population growth rates, disease burden and levels of poverty among all major regions of the world. The conference attracted participants from diverse backgrounds and field of expertise including: multi-disciplinary scholars, government officials, parliamentarians, service providers, multilateral and bilateral donors, the media and civil society. The Conference thus played a key role in forging networking among these groups; enhancing the visibility of African population, health and development issues in the global development discourse; and promoting an integrated approach to the study and application of knowledge on population dynamics in economic and social development planning in Africa. Apart from the formal sessions, there were a series of training sessions and round table discussions on topical issues such as research ethics; debate on the future of population growth in Africa; communication of research evidence to non-scientific audiences; role of policy makers in determining research agendas in Africa; and scientific writing.

The Sixth African Population Conference (6APC) is slated to be held in the last quarter of 2011 in one of the Central African countries yet to be decided by the Council of UAPS very soon.