According to the latest UN projections, despite a continuing slowdown in the rate of population growth, it is ?almost inevitable? that the number of people on the planet will rise from 7.3 billion today to 9.7 billion in 2050. Ten years ago, the world population was growing by 1.24% annually; today, the percentage has dropped to 1.18% ? or roughly another 83 million people a year. The overall growth rate, which peaked in the late 1960s, has been falling steadily since the 1970s. The UN report attributes the slowdown to the near-global decline in fertility rates ? measured as the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime ? even in Africa, where the rates remain the highest.