
WorldPop, the University of Southampton-based organization which leads Countdown’s geospatial data & analysis center, marked its 10th anniversary in October and has published several new resources relevant to Countdown’s mission.
The event, Mapping the Future of Spatial Demography, brought together experts, researchers, and policymakers to explore the evolving role of demographic data in global development. The gathering celebrated WorldPop’s contributions to advancing population data and fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration. The event also showcased 25 posters, offering insights into WorldPop’s research, tools, datasets, and impact studies, available to view here.
Other highlights from 2024 include:
- Peer-reviewed articles related to mapping refugee populations, immunization coverage in Nigeria (preprint), small area population estimation (preprint), population disaggregation, female genital mutilation in Nigeria, and inequality in immunization.
- Updates to the WorldPop Open Population Repository datasets, country-level gridded population estimates which are co-developed with governments and UN agencies, continue to be updated; new estimates for the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia were published in 2024.
- Creating an interactive webpage that shows the organization’s global engagement.
- An impact assessment conducted Dev-Afrique documented WorldPop’s contribution to “improving access to interventions, strengthening population modeling capacity, and accelerating progress for social impact.”
For more on Countdown’s geospatial work, visit the Geospatial Data & Analysis Center.