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The Rationale for International Assistance to Population Programs in the Developing World

This article reexamines the rationale for international assistance to population programs in the developing world. Defining the idea of development as a rationally guided effort toward better human conditions, population work is justified if it improves the welfare of the individual family. The renewed interest in providing family planning as part of comprehensive health and nutrition programs reinforces this approach. Allocation of funds for control of fertility is also justified on societal grounds. Excessive population growth hinders poor nations in their quest for adequate food supplies, job opportunities, education, and the other goals of development. It is argued, however, that fertility reduction is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition to achieve improved levels of living in poor countries; birth control should not be considered a substitute for traditional modes of development assistance, nor as a divergence from needed social and economic reform. A new approach to development assistance emphasizing equity in income distribution, even at the expense of overall increases in gross national product, suggests new hope for social justice as well as for the long-run reduction of fertility.