Population and Development: Assessment Before the 1994 Conference

In September 1994, world leaders and their population policy advisers will meet in Cairo at the fifth decennial World Population Conference held under the auspices of the United Nations. At least three things have changed since the 1984 Mexico City Conference. First, the two major buttresses of 'population optimism' - the belief that, under suitable conditions, rapid population growth need not pose a barrier to sustainable development and poverty alleviation - are gone: Marxism, on the one hand, and Reaganism, on the other. Second, Third World policy-makers no longer view harsh international conditions for economic development, in the form of slow industrialised country growth, low commodity prices, protectionism etc., as a temporary aberration. Third, greater attention is being paid to problems in two areas in which population is plausibly considered to play an important negative role: the environment and gender inequality...