World Development Report 1984

and training, data collection and analysis, special extremely important for effective use of population
projects, and biomedical and operations research. assistance.
Family Planning International Assistance, a branch One sign of the success of international assisof
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, tance is that many local governments now help
the American affiliate of IPPF, provides population pay for programs that only a few years ago were
assistance in more than forty countries. The Popu- supported by international grants. Colombia,
lation Council, with a budget of $16 million from Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand are picking up a
both public and private sources, provides technical progressively larger share of the costs of their popassistance
and supports social science and contra- ulation programs. India has for many years paid
ceptive research. The Pathfinder Fund is an exam- for a large share of its program, and China has
ple of smaller nongovernmental organizations. always completely financed its own program. This
Pathfinder manages about $7 million in public and trend toward self-financing makes it possible to
private funds, which are spent on innovative fam- reallocate aid budgets to countries that are only
ily planning services, women's programs, and starting to develop their population programs. For
population policy development. These small pro- example, the share of the UNFPA's budget going
grams, and similar programs in other countries, to Africa rose from about 12 percent during the
add to the flexibility and responsiveness of popula- 1970s to 23 percent in 1983.
tion assistance. Asia continues to receive the bulk of population
The World Bank supports population activities assistance (51 percent of the total), followed by
through IDA credits and loans to borrowers. Over Latin America (20 percent), Africa (15 percent),
a period of fourteen years, the Bank has committed and the Middle East (14 percent). Given the
$355 million for population projects, and had dis- emerging pattern of needs described in Chapter 7,
bursed $215 million by the end of 1983 (including a substantial increase in assistance is needed, espe-
$38.4 million in fiscal year 1983 itself). World Bank cially for Africa and South Asia. To meet unmet
finance is not available on terms as easy as most need in all regions in 1980 would have required
population assistance, much of which is given in spending $3 billion rather than the $2 billion that
the form of grants; nonetheless, Bank operations was actually spent (see Chapter 7, Table 7.6). By
grew in real terms by more than 5 percent a year the same yardstick, spending for population probetween
1977 and 1983. Over the past three years grams in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
the largest disbursements have gone to Bangla- should have been more than double what it was.
desh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Since Africa and South Asia are the poorest
and Thailand, which together accounted for more regions and most in need of external assistance,
than 90 percent of Bank lending for population. the bulk of the extra program support would have
The World Bank also supports an active program had to have come from international aid.
of economic and sector work aimed at enhancing The analysis in Chapter 7 led to two estimates of
understanding of how population growth affects required public spending for population programs
development prospects and how population pro- by the year 2000. If developing countries are to
grams can contribute to overall development. The achieve a "rapid" decline in fertility, $7.6 billion
Bank cooperates with other UN organizations, (in 1980 dollars), almost a quadrupling of 1980
especially UNFPA and the World Health Organiza- spending, would be needed. The "standard"
tion, in research and analysis requested by mem- decline would require $5.6 billion. With two-thirds
ber governments. of external population assistance going to support
The predominance of foreign assistance within family planning, foreign aid now supports about
the population sector in many countries means 25 percent of all family planning costs in developthat
the attitudes and priorities of donors become ing countries. Assuming these proportions do not'
significant. At the same time, the great number of change, population assistance will need to triple
donors-private, official, bilateral, and multila- (standard decline) or quadruple (rapid decline) its
teral-means that their priorities may not always current level. A quadrupling would raise populacoincide.
They may send conflicting signals to tion assistance to an annual level of $2 billion (1980
host governments, fueling internal controversies. dollars) by the year 2000. With no other changes in
Further, their numerous activities may not be official development assistance, total aid for all
complementary or represent the most efficient assistance programs would increase by 5 percent,
allocation of resources. Coordination among by no means an unmanageable addition to aid
donors and with the host government is therefore budgets. With the expected growth of industrial
180