2000  

  • Mifepristone receives US Food and Drug Administration approval to be marketed as Mifeprex™ for medical abortion
  • Mirena®, a levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (IUS), is approved 
  • Population Council becomes a UNAIDS Collaborating Center
  • Ford Foundation funds social science training fellowships for Vietnam
  • Council receives $1.8 million from the European Union for a small-grants research program on HIV in India
  • Council concludes $16 million fundraising campaign to renovate the Center for Biomedical Research
  • Mellon Foundation offers $1 million endowment challenge grant for the Policy Research Division

2001  

  • Population Council receives its first grant from the US National Institute on Aging
  • United Kingdom provides five-year $7 million grant for policy research on adolescents
  • Council's annual budget: $70.2 million
  • Staff members work in offices in 18 countries
  • Rodney B. Wagner becomes chairman of the board; Elizabeth J. McCormack becomes vice chairman
  • Purnima Mane becomes director of the International Programs Division and a Council vice president

2002  

  • Population Council celebrates 50th anniversary with events around the world
  • $20 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports continued lab work and clinical trials of the Council's lead candidate microbicide, Carraguard™
  • Horizons Program renewed by USAID for five years of operations research
  • Council's annual budget: $74.2 million
  • 592 staff members work in offices in 19 countries
  • Council opens sub-Saharan Africa regional office in Accra, Ghana, merging operations of two former regional offices in Kenya and Senegal

2003

  • USAID renews funding for the Population Council's Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program for an additional five years
  • Research on the prevention, treatment, and mitigation of HIV/AIDS now accounts for one-third of Council activities
  • Council conducts the first-ever survey of adolescents in Pakistan
  • Council signs a joint agreement with Acrux to develop a women’s spray-on contraceptive
  • Horizons Program hosts two symposia, one featuring findings of successful programs that improve the care and support of people living with HIV/AIDS and one on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV
  • Council's annual budget: $73.3 million
  • Staff members total 560 women and men from 38 countries
  • Council's Paul Demeny and Geoffrey McNicoll edit the Encyclopedia of Population; Demeny named winner of the Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg Award for excellence in writing and editing in the population sciences
  • Peter Donaldson becomes director of the International Programs Division and a Council vice president

2004

  • USAID/Ghana awards the Population Council a five-year, $12 million cooperative agreement to continue its assistance to the Ghana Health Service’s Community-based Health Planning and Services initiative
  • The efficacy phase of clinical trials for the Council’s lead candidate microbicide, Carraguard®, begins in three South African locations
  • Phase I testing begins on a spray-on contraceptive product using Nestorone® and MDTS® technology developed by Acrux
  • Council joins with Schering AG to create the International Contraceptive Access Foundation

  • US Senators Tom Harkin and Ernest Hollings visit a Council HIV/AIDS prevention program in Brazil

  • Council researcher Cynthia Lloyd edits report on findings of US National Academy of Sciences Committee on Population’s commissioned panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries