Management of Population Issues within the Department of
State
The attached memorandum on global population growth and related developmental
assistance programs suggests the need for a catalyst in the Department. At
present, there seems to be a bureaucratic and jurisdictional issue involved.
Ambassador Green has ideas but no
money; AID has money and is not always
responsive to Ambassador Green’s
ideas; and there are blurred bureaucratic lines between Ambassador Green, Mrs. Mink and Mrs. Benson. Thus, some of the key players have
been inhibited from taking a strong stand and moving forward.
One effective way to proceed might be for you to call together a few of the
key actors in this field including Gov. Gilligan, Under Secretary Benson, Assistant Secretary Patsy Mink, and Ambassador Green to [Page 950] discuss
where we ought to go substantively in this area and to set clear
responsibilities for implementing action.
In addition, we would need to work with Congress and with the public to
develop a better awareness of the problems of population growth, of their
impact on development and of the need on the part of the US to support a meaningful and sustained
program of developmental assistance aimed at reducing excessive population
growth rates.
You may wish to assert a more direct interest yourself. Naturally, I and my
staff are ready to assist you as you deem appropriate.
Attachment
Briefing Memorandum From the Director of the Policy
Planning Staff (Lake) to the
Deputy Secretary of State (Christopher)
3
Global Population Growth, Development for Human Needs and
U.S. Policy
The following memorandum outlines current global population problems
including implications for our development assistance programs. It also
proposes specific steps toward a more effective strategy and suggests
some North-South initiatives that we can take in the weeks and months
ahead.
By the year 2000 the present world population of about 4 billion will
grow to about 6.2 billion, with the developing world’s share of the
total population increasing from 62 percent now to 78 percent by the end
of the century, if present trends continue. Mexico, with perhaps the [Page 951] highest growth rate in the
world, will double its population to 132 million. India will exceed one
billion (610 million in 1976). Egypt will have 64 million (38 million
today). The United States, by comparison, will have about 260
million.
Global population growth, more than any other single factor, is
contributing to the lack of significant per capita income growth in the
developing countries.
While per capita GDP in the LDCs grew at
an average rate of 2.9 percent, the per capita increase in the
lower-income countries, where 59 percent of the total LDC population lives, averaged only 0.9
percent during the 1971–75 period. Non-communist LDC per capita food production between
1961–74 did not increase at all due to population growth. There could be
a doubling of food import requirements by the LDCs by the late 1980s,
placing a major burden on our agricultural capabilities.
Population growth promises an even more turbulent setting for the conduct
of international affairs. It also entails serious environmental costs
for the entire world community, including degradation of soil, and
desertification, as well as massive unemployment, and appalling living
conditions for much of the developing world.
Two million people in Mexico City are living today in miserable shanty
towns without sanitation and other services; and yet Mexico City, now at
11 million people, is projected to become the world’s largest urban
agglomeration—32 million in the year 2000.
The sharpest reductions in birth rates over the past decade took place in
LDCs that have experienced broad-based social and economic progress
during the last three decades. There is ever-widening recognition that
the best strategy for dealing with population growth is through a
combination of family planning and other programs that tend to reduce
birth rates, such as increased literacy, female education and
employment, increasing farm income, community development and increased
life expectancy largely through reduced infant mortality. Such
components of development tend to influence people to want smaller
families.
A “basic human needs” strategy on the part of the United States and other
developed countries will be vitiated by population growth unless there
are more effective efforts and programs to cope with the issue.
U.S. Policy
The basic U.S. policies to deal with world population are set forth in
the NSSM–200 study and NSDM–314, which has now been reaf[Page 952]firmed. (See Tab 1 for NSDM–314 and summary of the NSSM–200 Study.)4
A key element in that policy is to concentrate our bilateral and
multilateral population assistance efforts on 13 key larger and
fast-growing countries of the developing world—India, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Philippines, Colombia,
Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, and Ethiopia. The 13 together contribute an
average of 34.3 million (or 47%) of the world’s annual population
increase.
We now provide more than $140 million annually (FY–77) through AID for
population assistance. This year about $103 million is going for
bilateral programs in 34 countries and about $40 million is being
provided multilaterally, mostly to the United Nations Fund for
Population Activities (UNFPA). But
our assistance is still too little, too dispersed and
not as effective as it might be. Moreover, even though we must
place greater focus on supporting the population programs of 13 of the
biggest LDC population countries
(excluding China which has its own highly effective programs), several
of those countries are uninterested or ineffective in carrying out
programs and in several others our aid must be channeled exclusively
through multilateral agencies.
Legislative Branch interest and support in this field is strong. Congress
has also recognized (Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended) that
“US assistance should be used in
support of, rather than in substitution for, the self-help efforts that
are essential to successful development programs and shall be
concentrated in those countries that take positive steps to help
themselves.” Congress is nevertheless sensitive about anything smacking
of coercion or which relates to abortions.
An Effective Global Population Strategy
The USG Task Force on Population Policy
headed by Ambassador Marshall
Green has concluded that successful population programs
require: (a) leadership commitment; (b) integrating family planning into
community development and village life; (c) training indigenous
paramedics to provide comprehensive health, nutritional and family
planning services and (d) improving the status of women. Together with a
developmental strategy which influences people to have smaller fam[Page 953]ilies, this approach can
significantly improve the actual conditions of life of the poorest,
especially those in rural areas.
Most importantly, a developmental strategy which is aimed at
strengthening community structures supports a number of important goals:
(a) reducing economic and social inequality, (b) fostering local
democratic processes by involving community institutions in self-help
programs, (c) improved health and productivity as well as (d) population
growth reduction. Community involvement in such “self-help” efforts also
provides peer pressures or values which promote improved quality of life
and smaller families. This approach must, however, be part of an
integrated national developmental plan with strong government
support.
A firm commitment by the United States towards the above goals and
accompanying strategy would also contribute towards a sensitive
North-South plan of cooperation focusing on real needs and away from
empty ideological posturing. Such a program also strengthens our human
rights efforts since strong and active local communities are vital in
promoting participation processes at the grass-roots level. Since the
strategy also emphasizes national leadership and the mobilization of
indigenous resources, it ensures that what aid we do provide fully
relates to the receiving country’s own program and priorities. It also
comports with the above-cited Congressional precepts.
Perhaps the key in our promoting effective population policies in the
developing world is to obtain the support and commitment of their
national leaders for a sustained and effective effort to reduce
excessive population growth. Success in this area is vital for progress.
Yet we have not always used our high-level influence to this end in many
key countries.
Action and Initiatives for the US
We need to pursue a comprehensive and well-coordinated USG global population strategy which takes
into consideration all of these problems and possible responses. There
is particular need for a better coordination of our diplomatic and
developmental assistance efforts. This is a matter you may wish to
discuss with Gov. Gilligan as
well as other key officials, followed by specific instructions to our
Ambassadors and AID Directors.
At each suitable occasion, formal and informal, we should raise the
population issue with LDC leaders and
relevant heads of international institutions and donor programs, helping
develop an awareness of the new directions in our assistance strategy.
Such talks should embrace population issues, although the focus would be
on all the components of development that improve conditions of life for
the masses.
[Page 954]
Special high-level initiatives by the President and Secretary would be
helpful in moving forward the basic population strategy outlined above.
Such initiatives could include:
—Taking advantage of meetings with other leaders to discuss this issue
frankly (and perhaps informally) in order to have the benefits of their
views and to see how we can be most helpful in the context of their
needs, institutions and purposes.
—Pressing, in planning for the UN Third
Development Decade,5 goals
of basic health, family planning and nutritional services for the
poorest, utilizing indigenous institutions and paramedical
personnel.
—Proposing a major expansion of our multilateral
funding of UNFPA with the
understanding that the bulk of funds would be provided to key countries
including India, Egypt, and Mexico. (We would, however, seek major
increases in contributions from other donor countries, especially Japan
and the FRG.)
—Sending a high-level Presidential or Secretarial Mission to discuss
developmental and population issues with key leaders of selected LDC countries, including offers of
additional long-term assistance for specific programs.
—Develop intensive “model” programs in a few countries utilizing local
community structures for delivery of basic services, with minimum
long-term outside help, which could be expanded in other areas if
successful.
—Integrate our food assistance programs into comprehensive projects with
relevance to population growth.
—Make a high-level effort with the IBRD
and the regional development banks to place more emphasis on
population-relevant programs including family planning.
