On 26th August, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) aired coverage of the World Population Day Special Symposium (click here for details), on its Saturday Forum program. This is the first time that the World Population Day Symposium in Japan has been televised in the program.

The seventy-minute weekly discussion program has been running since 1990, and offers in-depth analysis of the latest social trends in and outside Japan. Opinion leaders, experts and members of the business and media sectors take part, and the program appeals to politicians and academics. An estimated 150,000 households watched the program.

The program covered the special presentation by Kuniko Inoguchi, Minister of State for Gender Equality and Social Affairs, on "New countermeasures toward declining population in Japan" in its entirety, and the panel discussion on "The world with a population of 6.5 billion and Japan with a declining population."

While the program mainly focused on the declining birthrate in Japan, the falling population and what this means for the country, it also reminded viewers Japan is part of the global community, and the importance of ODA for the development of international society.