Pollution, Environment, and Sustainable Resources: Why the Focus on Population?
Maria Sophia Aguirre
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC 20064
I. Introduction
“Sustainable development” is a policy approach that has gained quite a lot of popularity in recent
years, especially in international circles. The UN and other organizations such as Bretton Woods have
taken an active role in defining “sustainable development.” By attaching a specific interpretation, they
have made population control the overriding approach to development. An illustration of such policymaking is the recent Five Year Review and Appraisal of Implementation of the ICPD Programme of
Action (ICPD+5). As will be seen, such population policies have become the primary tool used to
‘promote’ economic development in developing countries and to protect the environment. However,
these policies have failed to achieve either goal.
In order to obtain a clear analysis of the situation, it is necessary to address the theories upon
which population control policies rest. Economics and environmental science are often used as supports
for such policies in an attempt to establish a relationship between population, environment, and economic
development. However, literature from both disciplines suggest opposite conclusions. Thus, it is critical
to hold up such policies to the light, as it were, of scientific research. To date, the research finds
inconclusive support for such a relationship; this suggests motives other than economic or scientific ones
behind population control policies.
II. "Overpopulation" Theories Unfounded
A. The Neoclassical Model
Historically, classical economists founded the relationship between population growth and real
growth on Malthus’ Theory of Population and Income, which proposes the existence of an inverse
relationship between population growth and development derived from the law of diminishing returns.
This law is the belief that more people mean fewer goods for each person; thus, as population grows,
poverty inevitably increases.
1
Malthusian Theory is founded on the following arguments:1
a. The consumption effect: For a given amount of resources, population growth affects consumption
directly.
b. The production effect on private and public goods: Population growth affects consumption indirectly
through the effect on production per worker. With a fixed capital, average production per worker will be
lower with a larger labor force (the classical argument of diminishing returns). Along the same lines, with
a fixed level of revenue, a larger population will increase the demand for public services, especially
education and health care, thus reducing the quality of these services and indirectly hindering
development through the reduction of funds allocated to infrastructure.
c. Age-Distribution effect: A faster-growing population implies a larger proportion of children and, given
the amount of resources, a smaller output per capita. The effect on women has been added to this
argument: the more children born per woman, the less chance she has to work outside the home; this
hinders her personal development.
d. Dilution of Capital: With a fixed income, population growth reduces savings and human capital
(education per person) and therefore reduces physical and human investment.
In summary, the classical theory of population growth, assuming a fixed level of resources,
predicts a decrease in per capita income in two ways: more consumers divide any given amount of goods,
and each worker produces less because there is less capital, private and public, per worker. In addition,
the growing number of young children poses an additional burden in the reduction of consumption
because they consume but they do not produce; it also hinders women's development as they may not be
able to work outside the home. Finally, population growth hinders economic growth because, by
reducing savings and education, it reduces investment. The key made in this theory is the ceteris paribus
condition (other things being equal) where resources are given and therefore constant.
Theoretical and empirical work suggest that there is no statistically proven simple relationship
between population growth and economic growth, population size and economic growth, or population
growth and environment.2
There is an absence of a correlation that contradicts the conventional
Malthusian deductive conclusion. The only persuasive argument in the face of this absence of correlation
1. This particular interpretation of Malthusian theory explanation relies heavily on Simon (1996a).
2. Simon (1996a,b) presents a recent review of the literature in this area. Other articles that present a review of the
literature include Ehrlich and Lui (1997), Temple (1999), and Sen (1996).
2
is a plausible scenario in which one or more specified variables that have been omitted from the analysis
would, in fact, lead to a negative relationship between population growth and economic development.
Thus, results suggest that population growth in itself is not the relevant variable for development.
Nobel prize winner Gary Becker advanced a model that relates the concept of human capital to the
family and growth. In it, he proposes an alternative to Malthusian models of economic growth. Becker
introduces human capital as an important source of economic development that depends on advances in
technological and scientific knowledge. A key assumption of this model is that the rate of return on
investments in human capital rises rather than declines as the stock of human capital increases; man is
creative and therefore the education of today implies more production in the future. For this reason,
resources are not necessarily fixed and may increase as population increases.
In a 1993 paper Becker found that population growth, when studied in the light of human capital
theory, leads to multiple equilibrium points. He concluded that this means that history and luck are
critical determinants of a country’s growth experience. Thus, population growth is not the only
determining factor in economic development as the Malthusian theory has predicted. Furthermore, he
stated that training and educational programs together with physical capital investment are the important
factors. He then concluded that developed countries with negative fertility rates and undeveloped
countries would benefit from an expansion of both the pool of human capital and strengthening of the
family as the principle promoter of education and quality of life. But what about diminishing returns?
Becker found the answer to this issue in the increase of labor productivity due to education and
consequently rejects the Malthusian assumption of fixed resources. Such findings have been long
sustained by Julian Simon, Norman Macrae, Aaron Wildavsky, Ben Wattenberg, Karl Zinsmeister, and
others.
Neo-Malthusian population control programs such as the ones adopted in European countries
have proven to hamper economic development and have led to an "aging population trap" rather than the
"underdeveloped trap" predicted by Malthus. Today, several EU countries are reversing such policies
because they can not support the aging population. On the other hand, developing are aware that
population is an important resource. They also realize that its reduction will not produce sustainable
development. Examples of population control policy failures in developing countries are numerous; some
examples are Bangladesh, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan before the mid-80s.
Aging Population
3
A growing proportion of the retired population to the active working population characterizes an
aging society. The reversal of the age pyramid affects virtually all societies today, but more so the
industrial countries. For some twenty years, decreasing fertility has affected developed countries such as
Northern and Western Europe, Canada, US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. It is now extending to
several developing countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. As reported by
UNFPA (1996), in 51 of 185 countries, or 44% of the population of the world, fertility is already below
replacement level. The number of deaths per year is even higher than the number of births in 15 of these
countries.
The causes of the present aging population are complex. Some sources have been found in the
living conditions and socio-cultural changes that countries have faced in the past 30 years. Among these
are:

Decreased infant mortality.

The marriage rate has declined in an environment that is hostile to matrimony.

The mean age at which women first give birth has sharply increased.

Labor codes do not facilitate women’s desire to harmoniously integrate their family life and
professional activity.

A lack of true family policies does not allow families to have the number of children that they
would like.

In developed countries, there is a widespread attitude that keeping a certain quality of life is more
important than having children. This poses a paradox that Wattenberg describes in The Birth
Dearth: “In the wealthier age of history many youth say that they can not afford to have more
than two children.”

There is a divergence between pessimism and hope experienced by the population.
Over the last thirty years, the UN and its agencies have invested, and continue to invest, large
financial resources in order to compel many countries to institute Malthusian polices. In addition, it has
encouraged compulsory population control programs as a condition for international aid both through
their own institution or through other international organizations. As a consequence, local governments
have also adopted such Malthusian policies; non-governmental organizations have actively fostered these
policies. Thus, regulation of fertility includes compulsory measures such as forced sterilization or
sterilization performed without proper informed consent, contraception, and abortion. Introduction of
4
chemical contraception techniques and frequent legalization of abortion have been widespread while
policies in favor of welcoming new lives have been weakened.
In recent years, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Zambia, and several
other developing countries have made denunciations of forced sterilization. However, such measures have
not been limited to less developed countries; cases have been found in Sweden among handicapped
women as well as in several refugee camps. Based on the information available, the first victims of these
programs seem to be innocent and helpless populations.3 They are systematically deceived and driven to
consent to their mutilation by false argument, if not by direct extortion, which puts birth control as a
condition to the access of credit and food aid. This has been reported in the procedure used by the
Grameen Bank in India and Pakistan and in certain African countries.4 Again, the critical assumption
undergirding these actions is that population control is a necessary antecedent to development.
Implosion and the consequent aging in population bring with them serious problems for both
developed and even more so for less-developed and developing countries. Some of these problems
include:

A smaller population needs to support an aging population that is less active and has a greater
need of healthcare and medical services. If one adds to this the fact that most social security
systems are predominantly of the pay-as-you-go type, the absence of younger generations
endangers the possibility of supporting the elder population. 5

Solutions proposed to alleviate the situation include resorting to euthanasia. In fact, some EU
countries have already legalized it.

Within the active population there is a tension between the young and the somewhat older people,
as the latter try to protect their jobs while younger generations enter into reduced job markets.

An impact on education: in order to provide for the economic burden of the elderly, there is a
great temptation to cut down on the money allocated for the training of new generations.
Consequently, the transmission of cultural, scientific, technical, artistic, moral and religious
3. Some of these matters have been dealt in Sen (1996), CLADEM (1998). The summary of this report was also printed
by the El Pais, Madrid, 12-20-98, and in Price (1997).
4. See the Grameen Bank web-page for some examples: http://www.grameen.com/bank/the16.html.
5. An extensive study of the effects of aging population on public pensions can be found in Chand and Jaeger (1996.)
Also see UNFPA (1998b) which is dedicated to this topic, and Longman (1999).
5
common goods is thereby endangered.

Danger of ‘moroseness,’ or a lack of intellectual, economic, scientific, and social dynamism and
reduced creativity, resulting in systemic stagnation.

Population growth expands the market and facilitates creativity and dynamism. An important
question arises regarding whether it is possible to maintain economic growth with population
implosion.

The problem of increasing illegal immigration into population imploding countries.

Increasing loneliness among the population because of small families and reduction of extended
family (Eberstadt, 1995).
B. Population Bomb and Shortage of Food
At the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 1974 in Bucharest, and
to a lesser extent in ICPD 1984 in Mexico City, proponents of population control cited Paul Ehrlich's The
Population Bomb (1968) as the basis for the theory of impending of world hunger. They argued that if
the world's population continued to increase, the world's food supply would eventually be depleted.
Experts defined "overpopulation" to be the point when food demand exceeds food supply. Ehrlich's
theory that food demand will exceed food supply has since been discredited by facts, just as Malthus'
theory was discredited. In fact, the productivity of the earth's land has grown faster than the world's
population; there is no scientific evidence of natural resources as being limited. A measure of scarcity is
price and the price of all natural resources has decreased. In addition, scientific journals such as Science
have published several articles that corroborate this reality.6
Lester Brown, the world’s leading modern Malthusian and president of the Worldwatch Institute,
an environmental group, has been arguing since 1973 that the world is entering an era of food scarcity.
He reckons that growing demand for grain in China, in particular, could soon overwhelm the capacity of
all world’s grain-producing countries. Yet, in China, a variety of rice is being developed which will
produce 13 tons per acre in 130 days. Among many other examples is the announcement of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research of the finding of a new breed of droughtresistance corn that could boost crop yield by 30% in some developing countries. Also, the International
6. For a recent summary of the current state of research, see Simon (1996) and Fresco (1998). Also see the report of the
FAO (1996), Gallagher & Carpenter (1997), Mann (1997), Mann (1999), Daily, Dasgupta and Bolin (1998).
6
Rice Research Institute announced the development of a new breed that yields 25% more food per acre
than the best current variety and, in addition, requires the use of fewer fertilizers. It is worthwhile to note
that no country has population growth that outstrips food production, even after food animal consumption
is included. In fact, studies have shown that the food industry is capable of producing enough food for a
population that has almost doubled the one forty years ago. A person in a developing country consumes
30% more calories and 50% more animal products than the previous generation, and this food production
takes place in a cultivated area of less or equal size than the one used by the previous generation (Fresco,
1998).
The cause of this success has been agricultural technology. Fifty percent of this improvement has
been attributed to biotechnology. In particular, the use of genetic maps and markers has allowed scientist
to breed existing plants species and animals much more effectively.
Other sources have been
improvements of fertilizers, irrigation systems, machinery and treatments of farm diseases. It is important
to note that the optimistic trends farm production crucially depend on a single variable: investment on
research and development (R&D). The trend in R&D spending, however, is worrisome. Mann (1997)
reports that public agricultural research funding has been declining for years. A study by Julian Alston of
the University of California—Davis reports that private money funded 53% of all agricultural research in
1993. Only 12% of this money went to direct crop improvement. This slowdown has especially hit
international R&D. The principal vehicle for international funding is the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a group of 43 public and private sector donors that supports
17 centers. Since 1993, CGIAR’s budget has remained about $315 million, but the budget per
organization has fallen. Instead, public and private money is being allocated to population control
activities. It is undeniable that in spite of all this progress, there still famine in the world and food
shortage. However, several scholars have suggested alternative reasons for these problems, such as
corruption (Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen), war, political instability, monopolistic structures, lack of
technology, etc., none of which are directly related to population size.
We have mentioned thus far food resources, but what could we say about nonrenewable
resources? This has certainly been an important concern for the population control promoters. Jeffrey
Krautkraemer (1998) presented an insightful and complete review of the empirical evidence currently
available on nonrenewable resources. The long-term availability of fossil fuels, particularly petroleum,
was the focus of concern about nonrenewable resource scarcity in the 1970s. In more recent years,
however, this concern has shifted to an emphasis on the environmental impacts of nonrenewable resource
7
consumption.
A common tool used in these studies has been Hottelling’s formal analysis of nonrenewable
resource depletion. This model provides some basic implications for how the finite availability of
nonrenewable resource affects their price and extraction paths. The economic intuition behind these
implications is as follows: A stock of nonrenewable resources can be viewed as an asset that generates
returns over time. The opportunity cost of extracting and consuming is that there is less to extract and
consume in the future. A firm that seeks to maximize the present value of profit takes this cost into
account when deciding how much to extract. At the margin, the value of extraction should equal the
value of not extracting (which is the value of the marginal opportunity cost of depletion or user cost.)
Asset market equilibrium requires the rate of return to hold the nonrenewable resource stock at equal the
rate of return to other assets. The basic form of this model assumes a known finite quantity of
homogeneous resource, and the extraction cost is independent of the remaining stock. It follows that, in
this case, the return to a nonrenewable resource asset consists entirely of the appreciation of its in situ
value and market equilibrium requires that the in situ value increase at the rate of interest.
For the most part, the implications of the Hotteling model have not been consistent with empirical
studies of nonrenewable resource prices and in situ values. There has not been a consistent increase over
the last 125 years, but rather fluctuations around time trends, whose direction can depend upon the time
period selected. This shows that finite availability is not the only factor that significantly affects these
types of resources. Elements such as extraction technology, technological changes, the existence of nonhomogeneous qualities of resources, the fact that resource quantity is not known with certainty, as well as
the frequent further developments of existing deposits, are all important features in minerals industries.
In addition, since the cost of extractive capital increases with an increase in the rate of interest, it is no
longer necessary to assume that an increase in the rate of interest implies more rapid depletion. Empirical
evidence also indicates that the discovery of new deposits and technological progress has significantly
mitigated the impact of the finite availability of the relative scarcity on nonrenewable resources used in
commodity production. In addition, the finite availability of nonrenewable resources at a particular point
in time has not yet led to increasing economic scarcity of nonrenewable resources for production and
consumption activities. The development of new materials that substitute for nonrenewable resources,
improvements in extraction and processing technologies that allow for economical use of low grade ores,
and the greater efficiency in the use of nonrenewable resources are all likely to continue. It remains to be
seen whether population growth and economic development have an effect. The evidence thus far does
8
not provide any indication of such problems.
C. Population Growth and the Environment
In the face of this evidence, proponents of population control policies have formulated a new
definition of "overpopulation." The new definition begins with the premise that human activity pollutes
and that the human being is the worst polluter. Therefore, the world's population must be reduced in
order to stop human pollution. The argument for population stabilization has shifted to the need to
preserve the environment due to human pollution.
Empirical results show a relatively insignificant effect or link between population growth and
pollution in the short-run (thirty years or less), as is shown in Shaw (1992) and Beckerman (1995). Longrun forecasts, however, predict that the total pollution output will be more or less proportional to the labor
force, for a given level of technology. The obvious problem is this last assumption, which is similar to the
faulty assumption of Malthusian theory. In fact, human history shows a trend where additional people
have created new technology to combat pollution as well as creating it. In the last decade, pollution has
been reduced rather than increased in the major cities of the world. In short, damage to the environment
can be traced to unrestrained growth of corporations and the failure of nations to regulate waste disposal
rather than to population growth. In addition, the Green Revolution has also caused environmental
problems. Millions of hectares of irrigated land have become waterlogged or rendered infertile because
water has left deposits of salt. Yet, the Green Revolution has also protected the environment by allowing
more food to be produced without a dramatic increase—and some times even decrease—in the area of
land under crops. In fact, most scientist reckon that bio-technology, provided it is well regulated, poses
negligible risks to the environment.7
The ecologists’ concern is not so much with the quantity of food but with imbalance in the natural
ecosystem. They find the main source of blame in industry, automobiles, and agricultural developments.
Rabkin (1997) summarizes their concern by stating that “the theory behind global warming holds that
emissions from automobiles and industrial activity will reduce the rate at which heat from the sun is
reflected back into space from the earth’s surface. Acting like the glass panes in a greenhouse roof, these
accumulating 'greenhouse gases' will produce a gradual rise in average global temperatures.”
(Rabkin,1997)
In the mid-1980s, scientist forecasted that a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of carbon
7. Fresco (1998) contains an excellent review of these findings.
9
dioxide, a secondary greenhouse gas, would increase the mean global temperature by nearly 6 degrees
Celsius by the year 2050, with an increase perhaps three times greater at the polar latitudes. Warming of
this scale might induce melting of the polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise and resulting in flooding in
low-lying regions. There was also concern over possible disruptions in weather patterns, leading to
droughts in some areas and storms elsewhere. Relying on such forecast, the World Meteorological
Organization and the UN Environment Program organized the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate
Change (IPCC) to clarify the sources of the danger and to propose ways to mitigate it. This institution, at
the time, received considerable pressure to present an alarming view of the problem and provided many of
the pessimistic data used in the Rio Summit of 1992. However, since then, the IPCC has reported doubts
on these findings and has revised its projections. Where they had predicted that the rise in sea level was
to be 5 feet by the year 2030, they now predict that might be less than 1.25 feet. Regarding the global
warming, they have reduced their estimations from 6 degrees to 1 to 3.5 degrees by the middle of the 21 st
century.
Data obtained from satellites, for example, demonstrate that while the troposphere—the layer of
air extending from the earth’s surface to a height of seven km—has shown a good deal of temperature
variability over the past eight years, there has been no net warming; if anything, there may have been a
slight cooling of the atmosphere. Furthermore, they clarified that this variability could be attributed as
much to natural occurrences, such as volcanic eruptions and solar flares, as to man-made emissions. The
fact is that the earth tends to fluctuate not only over decades but over centuries. In addition, most
temperature increases in the 20th century took place in the years before World War II before industrial
activity and bio-genetic agriculture could have had any effect. A number of scientists maintain that even
the revised projections overestimate the danger and present an exaggerated view of the possible effects on
the climate. This reevaluation and more recent results, have not been reported in the press, however, and
therefore have had no effect on public thought on the subject. 8
From an economic development perspective, then, it can be said that the economic theories used
to support population control polices are unfounded and do not do much for the development of less
developed countries. On the contrary, empirical results suggest that it hampers their most important
resource: population. Malthusian considerations of the relationship between population and growth
8. Some writings that cover these materials are in addition to Rabkin (1997), Kerr (1997), ACSH (1997), Lamb (1982),
Moore (1995), Gallagher and Carpenter (1997), Kasun (1991), and Avery (1998).
10
assume that this relationship is negative. However, this negative correlation has not been proven
empirically. In addition, theoretical work has been developed where results a rejection of the Malthusian
correlation, leaving it as a possible outcome; even then, it isnot necessarily caused by population growth
but by other external shocks to the economy. Thus, Malthus and his followers are mistaken on both the
demand and the supply side. They are mistaken on the demand side because population does not follow a
geometric growth as Malthus predicted. They are equally mistaken on the supply side because the
resources are not easily extinguished; rather, they are created and expanded by the people who are born,
live and work. Empirical results show that there is no clear connection between them, or that if there is
any, population control is not a determinant variable for achieving growth (as it was in the case of the NIC
countries) and much less the solution for global pollution reduction.
III. Why then an ICPD’94 and ICPD+5?
Clearly, neither food shortage, environmental concern nor Malthusian population models provide
support for the objective of population control policies or UN plans, as was clearly seen in ICPD '94 and
now in ICPD+5. The true objectives are population control per se and the imposition of an ideology
supported and pushed forward by the women's caucus. Specifically, these policies regulate fertility,
imposes specific means as to how to carry out this regulation at the international, national, local, family,
and individual levels. They also introduce abortion, although in an evasive manner, as a means of fertility
regulation, and impose economic constraints on the allocation of national resources in developing
countries (Ref. Ch. 13 and 14, and Ch. 4 of ICPD+5). Furthermore, UNFPA, and consequently ICPD+5,
has now set as its target adolescents (Ref. Ch.4).
The lack of consensus regarding this agenda was clearly demonstrated by the outcome of the UN
Conference since Cairo on. The Programme of Action for both ICPD and ICPD+5 contains ambiguous
language and mandates that has led to an explosive controversy over the language and the content of the
proposal for the action-oriented recommendations in the document. Lack of consensus remained around
references to "sexual and reproductive health and family planning services." Other terms included:
"sexual and reproductive rights approach”, “unwanted pregnancies”, "safe abortion" (now referred as
“willingness of women to stop something they really do not want”), and "regulation of fertility". A major
source of disagreement between the G77 and developed countries occurred once again in New York
during the preparatory committee meeting (March 24-31, 1999) as well as during the plenary session
(June 30-July 2, 1999) regards adolescent sex education and access to reproductive services and
11
information. The majority of the UN members have serious problems with “sexual education at an early
age,” the lack of respect for “parental rights, duties, and responsibilities for the education of their
children,” as well as references to removing barriers to sexual and reproductive health care services and
information for adolescents. Developing countries want real economic development, no population
control and manipulation of women and the youth. Therefore, they continue to resist language that
assures “interlinkages between population's poverty, patterns of population, and environment” because
such relationships are unfounded. They also oppose impositions on countries' allocation of funding for
these programs such as the 20/20 initiative, which was first mentioned as an option in the Social Summit
of Copenhagen and is now incorporated into the body of the ICPD+5 document.
Let us not forget that although approved by consensus, more than 40 countries placed reservations
over the whole document and over 80 countries on parts of it in Cairo. The four major reservations over
the whole document were: 1) abortion is not to be used as a method of family planning; 2) the family is to
be understood only as the natural family, i.e., a married heterosexual couple; 3) concepts such as
"reproductive rights", "reproductive health", or "regulation of fertility" could only be understood within
the context of a married couple; and 4) this document is not to be imposed on countries against their
constitutions, domestic law, culture or religion.
Furthermore, these reservations were once again
reiterated with little variation at ICPD+5.
Real Motivation and the Real Agenda: Contraceptive Imperialism
It is not surprising, then, that the estimates and projections used by population control policy
proponents are chosen selectively to support their point. These figures are based on population growth
projections but also on the number of women dying due to illegal abortions, adolescence pregnancies,
HIV/AIDS, or child delivery. In reality, however, statistics show that the leading causes of mortality in
developing countries are not those cited by population control advocates. Tropical diseases that cannot be
attended to because of a lack of primary medical care are the main health risk. One delegate summarized
the situation during the ICPD+5 negotiations: "what we need are aspirins not condoms and
contraceptives." Yet policy decisions and allocation of resources for population control rest largely on
such inaccurate estimations. This is what happened at Rio, at Cairo, and now at ICPD+5.
If this is the case, the next question to be put forward is ‘Why then this emphasis on
population control?’ A helpful way to answer this question may be to consider who were the “main
players” of the conference in Cairo and ICPD+5 and who benefited from the Programme of Action.
12
The United States, Canada, and the European Union were certainly for population control and had
strong support from UNFPA, who was clearly not evenhanded during negotiations. By contrast, the
G77 (composed by 133 countries out of the 180 that participated in the conference) systematically
resisted this emphasis on population control. The G77 intended to shift the focus towards real
economic development and wanted funds allocated to this purpose rather than just population
control. Yet, as happened at Cairo, countries that showed resistance to these types of policies
suffered a lot of pressure and threats regarding the forgiveness of the debt and other funding from
international organizations by the developed countries. Furthermore, majority of the NGOs
accredited by the UN were directly involved in programs sponsored by the International Planned
Parenthood Federation (IPPF). This had already been the case as Cairo, where 200 delegates were
directly involved in programs sponsored by Planned Parenthood, and acted as delegates for about 90
countries. Holding dual positions at the very least constituted a conflict of interest; thus it is clear that
these main players had great interest in the final Programme of Action draft .
It is not surprising that the only specific allocation of funding within the documents, which is
included in chapter 13 in ICPD and chapter 4 of ICPD+5, is for “programmes in the area of reproductive
health (..) and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.” The amount allocated for the next 20
years is $77.7 billion dollars (pt. 13.15).9 The new document, ICPD+5, calls for an additional 25.83
billion for “population programs alone” (pt. 95). The MacArthur Foundation, as well as the Bill Gates,
Rockefeller, Packard and the Ted Turner Foundations have already pledged some of this funding.
In addition, ICPD+5 “urges” countries to “increase the proportions of public sector expenditures
to the social sector” by following the 20/20.10 This initiative urges countries to allocate “at least” 20% of
their government budgets and 20% of all the financial aid received in their countries to “basic social
services.”11 In addition to the aforementioned funds, additional funding is encouraged for these programs
9. Of this 77.7 billion, family planning components represent 48.1 billion, reproductive health components represent is
$22.2 billion, $5.7 billion represent sexually transmitted disease prevention (i.e., AIDS prevention through the
distribution of condoms), and $1.7 billion represent basic research programs in the previously mentioned areas.
10 . UNFPA, Proposals for Key Actions for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development, pt. 6.13.
11. These social services include: 63% for Reproductive Health and Population (including disease control-i.e.,
AIDS), and family planning programs (which include sexual education programs, reproductive health and population
programs, and contraceptive research). The 37% left is for basic education (primary education and early childhood
development services such as nursery schools and other settings for early instruction), and "low cost water and
13
through out the document, specifically through the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), the United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank loans. These
institutions have histories of requiring countries accepting loans to agree to comply with United Nations
population documents. National governments are obliged to follow these policies through loans and
grants conditioned by the establishment and continuation of population programs. This is what some
people at Cairo defined as “contraceptive imperialism.”
From an economic theoretical and empirical analysis, these allocations clearly will not provide for
the "sustainable development" of less developed and developing countries, so I will leave it to your
discretion to determine who is the main beneficiary of these policies, at least from an economical point of
view.
One-fourth of the world's population lives in developed countries where the population is
imploding. This one-quarter of the population, however, consumes three-quarters of the world's
resources. Advocates of population control want their policies in developing countries for three reasons:
to provide military security, to attempt to limit the number of people migrating to their countries from less
developed and developing nations, and to exploit developing countries' resources. The focus on
population control has become the overriding policy of the United Nations, and consequently, a condition
for all loans from the United States, the United Nations, and international agencies. Developing countries
have been asked to reduce government spending on education, health, and other social programs, and
instead funnel these funds into population control services. 12 Thus, the well-financed nations and
organizations impose their population control schemes on less-privileged nations, and thereby foster
contraceptive imperialism.
What about the Women's Caucus ideology? In step with the Planned Parenthood agenda, they
equated the empowerment of women with infertility. They demanded the recognition of unbridled
individual rights, and suggested “Changes in the patterns of human reproduction,” a phrase which was
included in ICPD and ICPD+5. This phrase implies, however, that the human reproductive system has
changed. Is this an accurate statement? In the light of the women’s caucus agenda, it is not surprising
that some terminology is absent in the final Programme of Action. These terms include “abstinence,”
“adoption,” and “natural family planning.” These terms all involve practices where women are in truly in
sanitation technology"-i.e., hand pumps, rain water collection, and latrines.
12 . In fact, this is specified in Chapter 14 of the 1994 ICPD Programme of Action as well as in ICPD +5.
14
control of their reproductive systems and are freely exercising their right to decide the number and
spacing of their children or to abstain from them.
ICPD+5, quoting ICPD’94 states that “Adolescents must be fully involved in the planning,
implementation and evaluation of sexual education and reproductive health services as appropriate.” Are
children going to be planning and running sexual education classes, school-based clinics, and family
planning services? Where is the "proper regard for parental guidance?" Furthermore, the document
suggests the need to use all means of communication to spread the goals of the document, particularly to
the youth (pt.4.43). Is culture changing or does it want to be changed? Is this not manipulation?
Certainly the Hague Forum has set these last two issues at the center of economic development.
IV.
CONCLUSION
Population control policies do not provide for sustainable development. ICPD+5 excludes any
aspect of real economic growth in their key future actions. The main beneficiaries of these policies are
clearly neither the less developed nor the developing countries. At the same time, the women's caucus
agenda is put forward as the promoter of these policies. The reservations imposed by many countries in
recent UN documents clearly expressed disapproval of such agenda. The resistance of the G77 to UN
policies on adolescent sexual education and sexual rights rather than on population and economic
development continues.
The irony is that the main losers, I will argue, are women, men, the family and therefore society as
a whole. These policies coerce less developed countries to make population control the overriding
investment. Thus, women are involuntarily reduced to vehicles for carrying out government policy.
Women are provided with services and benefits only to the extent that these services and benefits are
related to population control. A woman's autonomy over her own reproductive system is not supported
but violated.
If we can learn anything from studies such as those produced by UNFPA and the Club of Rome
(1972), it is that rigid and deterministic projections are not trustworthy and that they result in policies that
are harmful. They tend to predict a crisis without taking into account the reality that technological
advances bring. It is time to acknowledge that the problem with development, poverty, and pollution is a
consequence of political and economic factors, not of population. These policies have contributed
problems of distorted prices, mistaken economic stability plans and economic development plans that
have benefited the development of cities at the cost of agricultural areas, protectionism, large foreign
15
debts, wars, etc. One thing is clear: there is no empirical evidence that population control policies would
solve any of the above problems; rather, evidence suggests the contrary. This is witnessed to by the aging
population trap, which is already causing serious public financial problems and may jeopardize the future
development of less developed countries.
Bibliography
ACSH, 1997. Global Climate Change and Human Health, American Council of Science and Health,
New York.
Avery, Dennis, 1998. “Global Warming-Boom for Mankind”, American Outlook, Spring, pp. 12-16.
Beckerman, Willfred, 1995. Small is Stupid: Blowing the Whistle on the Greens, Duckworth, New York.
Chand, Sheetal and Jaeger, Albert, 1996. “Aging Populations and Public Pension Schemes”, Occasional
Paper, IMF.
CLADEM, 1998. “Nada Personal”, Report of Committee de America Latina y el Caribe, December.
Daily, Gretchen, Dasgupta, Partha, Bolin, Bert, 1998. “Food Production, Population, Growth, the
Environment”, Science, August 28, pp. 1291-1292.
Eberstadt, 1995. Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule, American Enterprise Institute,
Washington DC.
Ehrlich and Lui, 1997. “The Problem of Population and Growth: A Review of the Literature from
Malthus to Contemporary Models of Endogenous Population and Endogenous Growth,” Journal
of Economic Dynamics and Control, 21:1, pp. 205-242.
FAO, 1996. Food and Agricultural Organization Conference Report, Rome.
Fresco, Louise O., 1998. Schaduwdenkers en Lichtzoekers, Huizinga-Lezing, Bert Kakker, Amsterdam.
Gallagher, Richard and Betsy Carpenter, 1997. “Human Dominated Ecosystems: A Special Report”,
Science, July 25, pp.485-529.
Kasun, Jacqueline, 1991. Population and Environment, Population Research Institute.
Kerr, Richard A., 1997. “Greenhouse Forecasting Still Claudy”, Science, May 16, pp. 1040-1043.
Krautkraemer, Jeffrey, 1998. "Nonrenewable Resource Scarcity", Journal of Economic Literature, 36:4,
pp. 2065-2107.
Lamb, Hubert H., 1982. Climate History, and the Modern World, Methuen, New York.
16
Longman, Phillip, 1999. “How Global Aging will Change the World’s Economic Well-being”, US News
& World Report, March 1, pp. 30-39.
Mann, Charles, 1997. “Reseeding the Green Revolution”, Science, Vol 277, August 22, pp.1038-1042.
___________, 1999. “Crop Scientists Seek a New Revolution”, Science, January 15, pp. 310-314.
Moore, Thomas G., 1995. Testimony before the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and
Environment, November 16.
Price, J.,1997. “States Forced Sterilization on up to 100,000 since 1907", The Washington Times,
November 22.
Rabkin, Jeremy, 1997. Greenhouse Politics, American Enterprise Institute, D.C.
Sen, Amartya, 1996. “Fertility and Coercion,” The University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 63, pp. 10351061.
___________, 1998. “A Job or Your Rights”, Document of Human Rights Watch, December.
Shaw, Paul, 1992. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, World bank, March-June, D.C.
Simon, Julian L, 1996a. The Ultimate Resource 2, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
___________, 1996b. The State of Humanity, Blackwell, New York.
Temple, Jonathan, 1999. “The New Growth Evidence”, Journal of Economic Literature, 37:1, pp.112156.
UNFPA,1998a. World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision.
______, 1998b. State of the World Population 1998.
17