Mexico City Population
Conference
• August 1984
• Preceded by draft Recommendations, which
were revised and accepted in final form
• Declaration on Population and
Development drafted at Conference
Declaration -1
• 1. Reaffirmed validity of 1974 World
Population Plan of Action
• 2. Recognized progress in human welfare,
but also problems - especially stagnation in
economic growth and increase in number of
people living in absolute poverty
• 3. Economic difficulties and problems of
resource mobilization in developing
countries
Declaration - 2
• 4. Population growth, high mortality and
morbidity, and migration problems causes
of great concern
• 5. Confirmed principal aim of social,
economic, and human development, of
which population goals and policies are
integral part
Declaration - 3
• 6. Global growth rate declined from 2.03 to
1.67 % per year
• 7. Demographic differences between
developed and developing countries remain
striking
• 8. Population issues recognized as
fundamental element in development
planning
Declaration - 4
• 9. Population policies - good experience in
previous 10 years
• 10. Population and development policies
reinforce each other when they are
responsive to individual, family, and
community needs
• 11. Improving the status of women and
enhancing their role is an important goal in
itself and will influence family life
positively
Declaration - 5
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12-14. Family planning
15. Maternal and child health
16. Aging
17. Urbanization
18. Migration
19-21. Role of governments, NGO’s
22. Close interrelationship of population
and economic and social development
Focus
• Much of the focus was, therefore, on
economic development
• Lip service was paid to status of women,
but most attention to women was through
family planning and maternal and child
health
• How did this come about?
Attitudes of developing countries
• No longer thought of international
population assistance as racist, genocidal, or
imperialistic
• No longer accused Western nations of
advocating population control as a
substitute for foreign aid
Attitudes of developing
countries-2
• Recognized that problems of rapid
population growth, infant and child
mortality, urbanization, and migration must
be addressed
• -- with or without transformation in the
world economy
The US position
• The conference was dominated by conflict
over the US position
• This position was at variance with the draft
Recommendations -- which had been
drafted only a few months earlier with
active US participation
US position on population
• “Population growth is, of itself, a neutral
phenomenon”
• developing countries experiencing
population pressures should reduce
government interference in their economies
in order to promote economic growth and
thereby reduce fertility
US position on abortion
• Much more restrictive than previously
• Previous position: US funds could not be
used for direct support of abortion-related
activities
• ADDED: they should be withheld from
organizations using other resources for
these purposes
Economics
• At Bucharest in 1974: US offended by Third
World introduction of North-South
economic issues
• At Mexico City in 1984: US took the
opportunity to advance its own political
views
• BUT - developing countries had much
greater influence on Plan in 1974 than US
did in 1984
Changing economics
• Between 1974 and 1984, developing
countries had government changes toward
more pragmatic and market-oriented
development -- e.g. China, India, Mexico,
Algeria
• Many LDC’s highly in debt to MDC’s making them more cautious in international
politics
Changing outlook toward
population
• By 1984, most LDC’s believed it was in
their interest to reduce fertility and address
population issues as part of their
development strategy
• China, sub-Saharan Africa -- had changed
their 1974 views that population was
unimportant
Conference preparation
• UN wanted to avoid reopening the
Bucharest debate or jeopardizing gains
achieved there
• The framework of the conference was to
develop further that agreement
• Wanted scientific and technical basis for the
recommendations
Preliminary meetings
• UN Population Division held a series of
specialized meetings
• -- fertility and family
• -- population distribution, migration,
development
• -- population, resources, environment and
development
• -- mortality and health policy
Other meetings
• UN Regional Economic Commissions
sponsored inter-governmental meetings
• Preparatory Committee -- enlarged special
session of the UN Population Commission
• --met twice early in 1984 -- to review draft
Recommendations and try to settle as many
issues as possible prior to the Conference
itself
Conference location
• Mexico City is so close to the US that there
was a much larger contingent of American
journalists, academics, lobbyists, and
Congressmen and their staffs than had been
possible in Bucharest
• Therefore, the debate over the changed US
position took place with a great deal of US
involvement
US role in population
• Delegates recognized that US government,
for better or worse, had been the single most
important source of leadership and
resources for international population
programs
• AID had largest population assistance
program of any donor
• large staff - 60 in Washington, advisors in
more than 40 countries; support to over 90
US position on population,
development, family planning
• Fundamental change in assessment of
consequences of rapid population growth
and appropriate policy responses
• “The relationship between population
growth and economic development is not
necessarily a negative one”
• “governmental control of economies” had
caused population growth to change from
an “asset” to a “peril”
US position - 2
• “Population control programs alone cannot
substitute for the economic reforms that put
a society on the road twoard growth and, as
an aftereffect, toward slower population
increase as well”
• There was no global population crisis that
requires drastic forms of intervention by
governments
US position - 3
• Repudiated “demographic overreaction of
the 1960’s and 1970’s”
• By so doing, implicitly repudiated the high
level of commitment and resources devoted
to population programs in those years by
US Agency for International Development
• Argued for a more optimistic assessment of
the global population and economic
situation
US position - 4
• Reaffirmed longstanding US policy that
family planning programs must be purely
voluntary
• US would not give population assistance to
or through any international or nongovernmental organization that supports
abortion or coercive family planning
programs - or any sort of coercian to
achieve population growth objectives
Results of US position
• US halted AID support to International
Planned Parenthood Federation
• US has been in arrears in UN funding holding it hostage to abortion and other
views
• Recommendations incorporate optimistic
outlook of the Reagan administration on
social and economic accomplishments and
prospects of the LDC’s.
Position on abortion
• US delegation was headed by James
Buckley, selected largely for his views on
abortion and acceptability to right-to-life
groups
• Official US policy statement: the US “does
not consider abortion an acceptable element
of family planning programs”
• To keep consensus, did NOT introduce this
as an amendment to the recommendations
Other views on abortion
• Vatican: proposed that abortion be
“excluded” as a method of family planning
• Compromise: abortion “in no case should
be promoted as a method of family
planning”
• US supported this. Sweden presented
formal reservation.
• What does “promoted” mean? - interpreted
differently by different countries
US position on status of women
• US, despite earlier support, made no
mention of this theme in its policy statement
• Consistent with views of right-to-life
movement and New Right re traditional
view of family and role of women in society
• Reagan administration facing an election could not afford to be seen as opposing
efforts to enhance status of women concerned about gender gap in voting
US vote on status of women
• US delegation ultimately endorsed a
proposal to strengthen the language dealing
with women
• There is a separate section near the
beginning of the recommendations on the
status of women
Attitude of US delegation
• Many delegates from other countries
expressed disappointment at the overall lack
of knowledge and expertise concerning
population and development problems of
the Third World among US delegates
• They thought selection of delegates was
totally politically determined
• annoyed by didactic tone adopted by some
US delegates
US opposition
• US scientists argued need for safe, legal
abortion as backup to contraceptives fail
• Gallup Survey just weeks before conference
indicated strong support for family planning
assistance to LDCs and rejection of tying
family planning assistance to others’
policies on abortion
• Six members of Congress came on their
own and held dissatisfaction press
conference
Why?
• Reagan elected in 1980
• needed continuing conservative support
• had followed earlier administrations in
support for reduction of population growth
• 1984 election loomed: Selected delegation
for political, not population, expertise
• Coalition of right-to-life, New Right
• targeted AID’s population program- met
promises to this group
What happened?
• Other governments truly disappointed in US
• They continued to support population
growth reduction
• US isolated in that regard - still powerful
• Increased activism - probably led to focus
on women at the 1994 conference