For the Small Island Developing States in the Indian Ocean region, particularly the Seychelles, the launch of UNFPA’s flagship State of World Population (SWOP) report was an opportunity to highlight that despite development in these countries, present and emerging issues remain to be resolved, and there is unfinished business to be achieved.

When Fikre Molla was preparing to have her baby, she wanted the childbirth traditions she had grown up with, but the safety of professional care in a proper health facility. Yet she lived in Ethiopia’s rural Amhara Region, 31 km from the nearest health centre. For her safety, she spent the weeks leading up to her due date at a UNFPA-supported ‘maternity waiting home’ close to the health centre.

"We took a lot of people out of vulnerable areas that were completely flooded. The water rose and destroyed many residential areas," said Captain Kleber Castro. "If the people there had not resisted, more than a hundred would have died." He commands the Brazilian military firefighters who have saved the lives of hundreds of people displaced by Cyclone Kenneth near the flooded city of Pemba in the...