The Politics of Bucharest: Population, Development, and the New International Economic Order

Abstract

At the World Population Conference in Bucharest in August 1974 official government representatives met for the 1st time for the purpose of dealing with the issue of population and its relationship to development along with population policies and action programs. The countries were not able to forget their political differences and consequently a global strategy for coping with demographic problems was not developed. These political differences essentially between the developed and the developing countries formed the basis for the cleavages and alignments at Bucharest and led to a new politicization of the population question. The problems might have been less severe if the wealthy developed nations had fulfilled their promises in increased financial aid to the developing nations. Although this failure and the problem of excessive identification of population programs with the U.S. contributed to the political differences the most significant factor is that during the past 10 years political leaders and intellectuals of developing nations have come to regard the relationship between the Third World and the industrialized world as feudal. The rich countries are dominant and the poor countries are dependent. In order for there to be cooperation the developing countries feel equality between the parties is essential. To accomplish this it is believed that the wealthy countries must be confronted on a collective basis and the achievement of solidarity among themselves is the 1st goal. Consequently a low priority is given to population as a global issue. They regard population an a national problem and will continue to deal with their problems on a national level. The World Population Plan of Action only achieved universal acceptance because it included explicit safeguards of national sovereignty and did not prescribe any particular population policy to member governments. (AUTHORS MODIFIED)