More than 3600 children were born in early 2021.

More than 3600 children were born.

With the calendar changing to 2021, UNICEF dedicating its 75th year to reinventing a better world for children.

An estimated 3,636 babies will be born in Uganda on New Year's Day, according to UNICEF.

This is a 7.26 percent drop from 2020, when an estimated 3,900 were born on the first day of the year.

As the calendar changes to 2021, UNICEF is again celebrating the new life it brings to the world. Due to its geographic location, the Fiji Pacific will welcome its first baby in 2021. Globally, more than half of the babies born on January 1 were born in 10 countries: India (59,995), China (35,615), Nigeria (21,439), Pakistan ( 14,161), Indonesia (12,336), Ethiopia (12,006), United States (10,312), Egypt (9,455), Bangladesh (9,236), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (8,640).

Under the Country Program 2021-2025, UNICEF in Uganda will continue to prioritize services and care for the country's most vulnerable children.

Uganda's babies will make up 0.9 percent of the estimated 371,504 babies born on New Year's Day. Their average life expectancy was 74.4 years.

"Last year was difficult for all of us, and perhaps there is no better way to turn every page of life than to welcome the life of a new successor to the world," said Laura Siegrist Fouch, Interim Representative for UNICEF in Uganda. "With the challenges of 2020 behind us and the opportunities of 2021 before us, now is the time to embark on the task of building a better world, starting today."

Under the Country Program 2021-2025, UNICEF in Uganda will continue to prioritize services and care for the country's most vulnerable children.

2021 marks the 75th anniversary of UNICEF's founding. Throughout this year, UNICEF and its partners will commemorate anniversaries with events and announcements that celebrate three-quarters of a century in protecting children from conflict, disease, exclusion and fighting for their rights to survival, health and education.

Today, as the world faces unprecedented challenges caused by rising poverty and inequality, both exacerbated by pandemics and an economic slowdown, UNICEF's work is urgently needed now more than ever.

"No year could be better than this year on the 75th anniversary of UNICEF to renew our commitment to one another, and to the lives of young people who will inherit the world we leave behind," said Ms. Fouch. "2021 will be a critical year for children. Facing a pandemic and mutating virus and therefore needs to be prepared to face challenges for the next generation, but UNICEF's three-quarters of a century in delivering results for children around the world is evidence of what we can achieve together. "

About UNICEF:

UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.

The United Nations Population Division has prepared population estimates and projections for all countries of the world since the early 1950s. These World Population Prospects (WPP) are now used throughout the whole UN system and by many international organizations, as well as academic researchers. They have become a standard input for development planning, monitoring and global modeling.

Traditionally, the World Population Prospects have included high and low fertility variants, in which the total fertility was assumed to remain 0.5 children above or below the medium variant over most of the projection period. These assumptions are insensitive to the initial level of fertility and to the rate of fertility decline in various countries and may therefore oversimplify or even distort the future range of fertility variation.

Recent research in collaboration with the University of Washington has now enabled the Population Division to calculate probabilistic population projections for all countries of the world. Initial results indicate that the WPP projections might have considerably underestimated the uncertainty in population growth of developing countries- particularly in the Least Developed Countries. The 95% projection intervals of total population growth, as given by the probabilistic projections, are significantly wider in these countries than the high-low variant ranges in the current WPP projections.

Traditionally, population projections have used variants or scenarios in the projection of fertility, mortality and migration to indicate uncertainty or illustrate policy options. The variants are usually based on plausible alternatives, such as the “half-child” rule for high and low fertility projections in the United Nations World Population Prospects. This pragmatic approach has the advantage that results can be easily communicated to policy makers and planners. However, it has the disadvantage that variants do not indicate anything about their probability . They are just plausible alternatives. have therefore developed probabilistic population projections where the range of uncertainty is represented by projection intervals. Probabilistic projections come in various flavors Some authors have used historical forecast errors , others have based their projections on expert opinion or used time series analysis to project future population parameters. Existing probabilistic population projections so far have been limited in their geographical scope either to macro-regions at the global scale, a specific region such as Europe , or few countries for in-depth case studies. So far, no attempt has been made to produce national-level probabilistic population projections for all countries of the world.

For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicef.org/uganda

According to APO group on behalf of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).