Population: Coming to Terms with People

Abstract

This chapter is about the World Population Conference which met in Bucharest, Romania, 20–30 August 1974, and the International Population Conference, intended to evaluate progress since its predecessor, held in Mexico City 6–14 August 1984.¹ Three major questions are to be addressed. First, why were the special conferences held in preference to discussion of the questions with which they dealt in, say, ECOSOC, or the General Assembly, or in one of the existing Agencies? Second, what was the impact of the conferences, intentional or otherwise, upon the population policies of government? It is necessary to consider the policy differences which were revealed during the conferences, and to measure the achievements reflected in their conclusions, which in this case took the form of a World Population Plan of Action agreed in Bucharest, and reaffirmed in 1984. And, thirdly, the question is to be considered of what the conferences achieved in the longer term: what was their contribution, if any, to the practice of population policy, and the means for its implementation.