World Demographic Trends

    1.  World Population growth since World War II is
quantitatively and qualitatively different from any
previous epoch in human history. The rapid reduction in
death rates, unmatched by corresponding birth rate
reductions, has brought total growth rates close to 2
percent a year, compared with about 1 percent before World
War II, under 0.5 percent in 1750-1900, and far lower rates
before 1750. The effect is to double the world's popu-
lation in 35 years instead of 100 years. Almost 80 million
are now being added each year, compared with 10 million in
1900.

    2.  The second new feature of population trends is
the sharp differentiation between rich and poor countries.
Since 1950, population in the former group has been growing
at 0 to 1.5 percent per year, and in the latter at 2.0 to
3.5 percent (doubling in 20 to 35 years). Some of the
highest rates of increase are in areas already densely
populated and with a weak resource base.

    3.  Because of the momentum of population dynamics,
reductions in birth rates affect total numbers only slowly.
High birth rates in the recent past have resulted in a
high proportion in the youngest age groups, so that there
will continue to be substantial population increases over
many years even if a two-child family should become the
norm in the future. Policies to reduce fertility will
have their main effects on total numbers only after several
decades. However, if future numbers are to be kept within
reasonable bounds, it is urgent that measures to reduce
fertility be started and made effective in the 1970's and
1980's. Moreover, programs started now to reduce birth
rates will have short run advantages for developing
countries in lowered demands on food, health and educational
and other services and in enlarged capacity to contribute
to productive investments, thus accelerating development.

    4.  U.N. estimates use the 3.6 billion population
of 1970 as a base (there are nearly 4 billion now) and
project from about 6 billion to 8 billion people for the
year 2000 with the U.S. medium estimate at 6.4 billion.
The U.S. medium projections show a world population of
12 billion by 2075 which implies a five-fold increase in
south and southeast Asia and in Latin American and a seven-
fold increase in Africa, compared with a doubling in east
Asia and a 40% increase in the presently developed countries
(see Table I). Most demographers, including the U.N. and
the U.S. Population Council, regard the range of 10 to 13
billion as the most likely level for world population
stability, even with intensive efforts at fertility control.
(These figures assume, that sufficient food could be
produced and distributed to avoid limitation through famines.)

Adequacy of World Food Supplies

    5.  Growing populations will have a serious impact
on the need for food especially in the poorest, fastest
growing LDCs. While under normal weather conditions and
assuming food production growth in line with recent trends,
total world agricultural production could expand faster than
population, there will nevertheless be serious problems
in food distribution and financing, making short-
ages, even at today's poor nutrition levels, probable in
many of the larger more populous LDC regions. Even
today 10 to 20 million people die each year due, directly or
indirectly, to malnutrition. Even more serious is the
consequence of major crop failures which are likely to
occur from time to time.

    6.  The most serious consequence for the short and
middle term is the possibility of massive famines in
certain parts of the world, especially the poorest regions.
World needs for food rise by 2-1/2 percent or more per
year (making a modest allowance for improved diets and
nutrition) at a time when readily available fertilizer
and well-watered land is already largely being utilized.
Therefore, additions to food production must come mainly
from higher yields. Countries with large population
growth cannot afford constantly growing imports, but for
them to raise food output steadily by 2 to 4 percent over
the next generation or two is a formidable challenge.
Capital and foreign exchange requirements for intensive
agriculture are heavy, and are aggravated by energy cost
increases and fertilizer scarcities and price rises. The
institutional, technical, and economic problems of
transforming traditional agriculture are also very
difficult to overcome.

    7.  In addition, in some overpopulated regions, rapid
population growth presses on a fragile environment in ways
that threaten longer-term food production: through culti-
vation of marginal lands, overgrazing, desertification,
deforestation, and soil erosion, with consequent destruction
of land and pollution of water, rapid siltation of reser-
voirs, and impairment of inland and coastal fisheries.

Minerals and Fuel

    8.  Rapid population growth is not in itself a major
factor in pressure on depletable resources (fossil fuels
and other minerals), since demand for them depends more on
levels of industrial output than on numbers of people. On
the other hand, the world is increasingly dependent on
mineral supplies from developing countries, and if rapid
population frustrates their prospects for economic develop-
ment and social progress, the resulting instability may
undermine the conditions for expanded output and sustained
flows of such resources.

    9.  There will be serious problems for some of the
poorest LDCs with rapid population growth. They will
increasingly find it difficult to pay for needed raw
materials and energy. Fertilizer, vital for their own
agricultural production, will be difficult to obtain for
the next few years. Imports for fuel and other materials
will cause grave problems which could impinge on the U.S.,
both through the need to supply greater financial support
and in LDC efforts to obtain better terms of trade through
higher prices for exports.

Economic Development and Population Growth

    10.  Rapid population growth creates a severe drag on
rates of economic development otherwise attainable, some-
times to the point of preventing any increase in per capita
incomes. In addition to the overall impact on per capita
incomes, rapid population growth seriously affects a vast
range of other aspects of the quality of life important
to social and economic progress in the LDCs.

    11.  Adverse economic factors which generally result
from rapid population growth include:

• reduced family savings and domestic investment;
  
• increased need for large amounts of foreign
  exchange for food imports;
  
• intensification of severe unemployment and under-
  employment;
  
• the need for large expenditures for services such
  as dependency support, education, and health which
  would be used for more productive investment;
  
• the concentration of developmental resources on
  increasing food production to ensure survival for
  a larger population, rather than on improving living
  conditions for smaller total numbers.

    12.  While GNP increased per annum at an average
rate of 5 percent in LDCs over the last decade, the popula-
tion increase of 2.5 percent reduced the average annual per
capita growth rate to only 2.5 percent. In many heavily
populated areas this rate was 2 percent or less. In the
LDCs hardest hit by the oil crisis, with an aggregate popula-
tion of 800 million, GNP increases may be reduced to less
than 1 percent per capita per year for the remainder of
the 1970's. For the poorest half of the populations of these
countries, with average incomes of less than $100, the
prospect is for no growth or retrogression for this period.

    13.  If significant progress can be made in slowing
population growth, the positive impact on growth of GNP
and per capita income will be significant. Moreover,
economic and social progress will probably contribute further
to the decline in fertility rates.

    14.  High birth rates appear to stem primarily from:

    15.  The universal objective of increasing the world's
standard of living dictates that economic growth outpace
population growth. In many high population growth areas of
the world, the largest proportion of GNP is consumed, with
only a small amount saved. Thus, a small proportion of GNP
is available for investment -- the "engine" of economic
growth. Most experts agree that, with fairly constant costs
per acceptor, expenditures on effective family planning
services are generally one of the most cost effective invest-
ments for an LDC country seeking to improve overall welfare
and per capita economic growth. We cannot wait for
overall modernization and development to produce
lower fertility rates naturally since this will undoubtedly
take many decades in most developing countries, during
which time rapid population growth will tend to slow develop
ment and widen even more the gap between rich and poor.

    16.  The interrelationships between development and
population growth are complex and not wholly understood.
Certain aspects of economic development and modernization
appear to be more directly related to lower birth rates
than others. Thus certain development programs may
bring a faster demographic transition to lower fertility
rates than other aspects of development. The World Population
Plan of Action adopted at the World Population Conference
recommends that countries working to affect fertility
levels should give priority to development programs and
health and education strategies which have a decisive
effect on fertility. International cooperation should
give priority to assisting such national efforts. These
programs include: (a) improved health care and nutrition to
reduce child mortality, (b) education and improved social
status for women; (c) increased female employment; (d)
improved old-age security; and (e) assistance for the
rural poor, who generally have the highest fertility,
with actions to redistribute income and resources including
providing privately owned farms. However, one cannot
proceed simply from identification of relationships to
specific large-scale operational programs. For example,
we do not yet know of cost-effective ways to encourage
increased female employment, particularly if we are concerned
about not adding to male unemployment. We do not yet know
what specific packages of programs will be most cost
effective in many situations.

    17.  There is need for more information on cost
effectiveness of different approaches on both the "supply"
and the "demand" side of the picture. On the supply side,
intense efforts are required to assure full availability
by 1980 of birth control information and means to all
fertile individuals, especially in rural areas. Improve-
ment is also needed in methods of birth control most
acceptable and useable by the rural poor. On the demand
side, further experimentation and implementation action
projects and programs are needed. In particular, more
research is needed on the motivation of the poorest who
often have the highest fertility rates. Assistance
programs must be more precisely targeted to this group
than in the past.

    18.  It may well be that desired family size will
not decline to near replacement levels until the lot
of the LDC rural poor improves to the extent that the
benefits of reducing family size appear to them to outweigh
the costs. For urban people, a rapidly growing element in
the LDCs, the liabilities of having too many children are
already becoming apparent. Aid recipients and donors must
also emphasize development and improvements in the quality
of life of the poor, if significant progress is to be made
in controlling population growth. Although it was adopted
primarily for other reasons, the new emphasis of AID's
legislation on problems of the poor (which is echoed in
comparable changes in policy emphasis by other donors and
by an increasing number of LDC's) is directly relevant to
the conditions required for fertility reduction.

Political Effects of Population Factors

    19.  The political consequences of current population
factors in the LDCs -- rapid growth, internal migration,
high percentages of young people, slow improvement in
living standards, urban concentrations, and pressures
for foreign migration -- are damaging to the internal
stability and international relations of countries in whose
advancement the U.S. is interested, thus creating political
or even national security problems for the U.S. In a
broader sense, there is a major risk of severe damage to
world economic, political, and ecological systems and, as
these systems begin to fail, to our humanitarian values.

    20.  The pace of internal migration from countryside
to over-swollen cities is greatly intensified by rapid
population growth. Enormous burdens are placed on LDC
governments for public administration, sanitation, education,
police, and other services, and urban slum dwellers (though
apparently not recent migrants) may serve as a volatile,
violent force which threatens political stability.

    21.  Adverse socio-economic conditions generated by these
and related factors may contribute to high and increasing
levels of child abandonment, juvenile delinquency, chronic
growing underemployment and unemployment, petty thievery,
and organized brigandry, food riots, separatist movements,
communal massacres, revolutionary actions and counter-
revolutionary coups. Such conditions also detract from the
environment needed to attract the foreign capital vital to
increasing levels of economic growth in these areas. these If
conditions result in expropriation of foreign interests,
such action, from an economic viewpoint, is not in the best
interests of either the investing country or the host
government.

    22.  In international relations, population factors
are crucial in, and often determinants of, violent conflicts
in developing areas. Conflicts that are regarded in pri-
marily political terms often have demographic roots. Recog-
nition of these relationships appears crucial to any under-
standing or prevention of such hostilities.

General Goals and Requirements for Dealing With Rapid
Population Growth

    23.  The central question for world population policy in
the year 1974, is whether mankind is to remain on a track
toward an ultimate population of 12 to 15 billion -- implying
a five to seven-fold increase in almost all the underdeveloped
world outside of China -- or whether (despite the momentum of
population growth) it can be switched over to the course of
earliest feasible population stability -- implying ultimate
totals of 8 to 9 billions and not more than a three or four-
fold increase in any major region.

    24.  What are the stakes? We do not know whether
technological developments will make it possible to feed
over 8 much less 12 billion people in the 21st century.
We cannot be entirely certain that climatic changes in the
coming decade will not create great difficulties in feeding a
growing population, especially people in the LDCs who live
under increasingly marginal and more vulnerable conditions.
There exists at least the possibility that present develop-
ments point toward Malthusian conditions for many regions
of the world.

    25.  But even if survival for these much larger numbers
is possible, it will in all likelihood be bare survival,
with all efforts going in the good years to provide
minimum nutrition and utter dependence in the bad years on
emergency rescue efforts from the less populated and richer
countries of the world. In the shorter run -- between now
and the year 2000 -- the difference between the two courses
can be some perceptible material gain in the crowded poor
regions, and some improvement in the relative distribution
of intra-country per capita income between rich and poor,
as against permanent poverty and the widening of income gaps.
A much more vigorous effort to slow population growth can
also mean a very great difference between enormous tragedies
of malnutrition and starvation as against only serious
chronic conditions.

Policy Recommendations

    26.  There is no single approach which will "solve"
the population problem. The complex social and economic
factors involved call for a comprehensive strategy with
both bilateral and multilateral elements. At the same
time actions and programs must be tailored to specific
countries and groups. Above all, LDCs themselves must
play the most important role to achieve success.

    27.  Coordination among the bilateral donors and
multilateral organizations is vital to any effort to
moderate population growth. Each kind of effort will be
needed for worldwide results.

    28.  World policy and programs in the population
field should incorporate two major objectives:

    30.  The World Population Plan of Action is not
self-enforcing and will require vigorous efforts by
interested countries, U.N. agencies and other international
bodies to make it effective. U.S. leadership is essential.
The strategy must include the following elements and actions:

    31.  The World Population Plan of Action and the
resolutions adopted by consensus by 137 nations at the
August 1974 U.N. World Population Conference, though
not ideal, provide an excellent framework for developing a
worldwide system of population/family planning programs.
We should use them to generate U.N. agency and national
leadership for an all-out effort to lower growth rates.
Constructive action by the U.S. will further our objectives.
To this end we should:

    32.  As measures to increase understanding of popula-
tion factors by LDC leaders and to strengthen population
planning in national development plans, we should carry
out the recommendations in Part II, Section VI, including:

    33.  We must take care that our activities should not
give the appearance to the LDCs of an industrialized
country policy directed against the LDCs. Caution must
be taken that in any approaches in this field we support
in the LDCs are ones we can support within this country.
"Third World" leaders should be in the forefront and
obtain the credit for successful programs. In this context
it is important to demonstrate to LDC leaders that such
family planning programs have worked and can work within
a reasonable period of time.

    34.  To help assure others of our intentions we
should indicate our emphasis on the right of individuals
and couples to determine freely and responsibly the number
and spacing of their children and to have information,
education and means to do so, and our continued interest in
improving the overall general welfare. We should use the
authority provided by the World Population Plan of Action
to advance the principles that 1) responsibility in
parenthood includes responsibility to the children and
the community and 2) that nations in exercising their
sovereignty to set population policies should take into
account the welfare of their neighbors and the world. To
strengthen the worldwide approach, family planning programs
should be supported by multilateral organizations wherever
they can provide the most efficient means.

    35.  To support such family planning and related
development assistance efforts there is need to increase
public and leadership information in this field. We
recommend increased emphasis on mass media, newer
communications technology and other population education
and motivation programs by the UN and USIA. Higher
priority should be given to these information programs
in this field worldwide.

    36.  In order to provide the necessary resources
and leadership, support by the U.S. public and Congress
will be necessary. A significant amount of funds will be
required for a number of years. High level personal contact
by the Secretary of State and other officials on the
subject at an early date with Congressional counterparts
is needed. A program for this purpose should be developed
by OES with H and AID.

    37.  There is an alternate view which holds that
a growing number of experts believe that the population
situation is already more serious and less amenable
to solution through voluntary measures than is generally
accepted. It holds that, to prevent even more widespread
food shortage and other demographic catastrophes than
are generally anticipated, even stronger measures are
required and some fundamental, very difficult moral
issues need to be addressed. These include, for example,
our own consumption patterns, mandatory programs, tight
control of our food resources. In view of the seriousness
of these issues, explicit consideration of them should begin
in the Executive Branch, the Congress and the U.N. soon.
(See the end of Section I for this viewpoint.)

    38.  Implementing the actions discussed above
(in paragraphs 1-36), will require a significant expansion
in AID funds for population/family planning. A number of
major actions in the area of creating conditions for
fertility decline can be funded from resources available
to the sectors in question (e.g., education, agriculture).
Other actions, including family planning services, research
and experimental activities on factors affecting fertility,
come under population funds. We recommend increases in
AID budget requests to the Congress on the order of
$35-50 million annually through FY 1980 (above the $137.5
million requested for FY 1975). This funding would cover
both bilateral programs and contributions to multilateral
organizations. However, the level of funds needed in the
future could change significantly, depending on such
factors as major breakthroughs in fertility control
technologies and LDC receptivities to population assistance.
To help develop, monitor, and evaluate the expanded actions
discussed above, AID is likely to need additional direct
hire personnel in the population/family planning area. As
a corollary to expanded AID funding levels for population,
efforts must be made to encourage increased contributions
by other donors and recipient countries to help reduce rapid
population growth.

Policy Follow-up and Coordination

    39.  This world wide population strategy involves very
complex and difficult questions. Its implementation will
require very careful coordination and specific application
in individual circumstances. Further work is greatly
needed in examining the mix of our assistance strategy and its
most efficient application. A number of agencies are
interested and involved. Given this, there appears to be
a need for a better and higher level mechanism to refine
and develop policy in this field and to coordinate its
implementation beyond this NSSM. The following options
are suggested for consideration:

    (a) That the NSC Under Secretaries Committee
be given responsibility for policy and executive
review of this subject:

Pros:

• Because of the major foreign policy implications
  of the recommended population strategy a high
  level focus on policy is required for the
  success of such a major effort.
• With the very wide agency interests in this
  topic there is need for an accepted and normal
  interagency process for effective analysis and
  disinterested policy development and implementation
  within the N.S.C. system.
• Staffing support for implementation of the
  NSSM-200 follow-on exists within the USC framework
  including utilization of the Office of Population
  of the Department of State as well as other.
• USC has provided coordination and follow-up
  in major foreign policy areas involving a number of
  agencies as is the case in this study.

Cons:

• The USC would not be within the normal policy-
  making framework for development policy as would
  be in the case with the DCC.
• The USC is further removed from the process of
  budget development and review of the AID Population
  Assistance program.

    (b) That when its establishment is authorized by
the President, the Development Coordination Committee,
headed by the AID Administrator be given overall
responsibility:^*

Pros: (Provided by AID)

• It is precisely for coordination of this type
  of development issue involving a variety of U.S.
  policies toward LDCs that the Congress directed
  the establishment of the DCC.
• The DCC is also the body best able to relate
  population issues to other development issues,
  with which they are intimately related.
• The DCC has the advantage of stressing technical
  and financial aspects of U.S. population policies,
  thereby minimizing political complications fre-
  quently inherent in population programs.
• It is, in AID's view, the coordinating body
  best located to take an overview of all the
  population activities now taking place under bilateral
  and multilateral auspices.

Cons:

• While the DCC will doubtless have substantial
  technical competence, the entire range of political
  and other factors bearing on our global population
  strategy might be more effectively considered by
  a group having a broader focus than the DCC.
• The DCC is not within the N.S.C. system which
  provides a more direct access to both the
  President and the principal foreign policy
  decision-making mechanism.
• The DCC might overly emphasize purely developmental
  aspects of population and under emphasize other
  important elements.

    (c) That the NSC/CIEP be asked to lead an Inter-
departmental Group for this subject to insure follow-up
interagency coordination, and further policy development.
(No participating Agency supports this option, therefore
it is only included to present a full range of
possibilities).

Option (a) is supported by State, Treasury,
Defense (ISA and JCS), Agriculture, HEW,
Commerce, NSC and CIA.¹

Option (b) is supported by AID.

¹ Department of Commerce supports the option of placing
the population policy formulation mechanism under
the auspices of the USC but believes that any detailed
economic questions resulting from proposed population
policies be explored through existing domestic and
international economic policy channels.

² AID believes these reviews undertaken only periodically
might look at selected areas or at the entire range
of population policy depending on problems and needs
which arise.