A number of countries—notably Denmark, the Netherlands, the United States, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia— increased their support for population programmes in 1995 and 1996. Denmark, for instance, increased its 1996 contribution to UNFPA to $47 million, of which $8.6 million is devoted to activities in sub-Saharan Africa. The Netherlands increased its allocations for population programmes to a full 4 per cent of its total development budget, bringing its international population assistance to $125 million by 1998. And the European Union has channeled around $31 million in aid through UNFPA for use in Asia.

But donor support for population activities would have been nearly $1 billion higher in 1995 if all donors had allocated 4 per cent of their total official development assistance (ODA) budget to population programmes. So far, only two countries have managed to reach that goal.

Furthermore, of all developed countries, only Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands have managed to devote 0.7 per cent of their total GDP to development assistance, the internationally-agreed target. Most industrialized countries do not even come close to this figure.

Developing countries are prepared to shoulder the burden of increased population and related programmes: but, even so, domestic resources will have to increase by around 8.5 per cent a year through 2000 in order to meet the targets agreed to in Cairo. This will be especially difficult for the least-developed countries of sub-Saharan Africa and south-central Asia.

Finally, it is important to put developing country commitments in perspective. The 78 per cent of all population funds invested by the developing world is skewed by a few large countries with extensive population and family planning programmes. Just three countries—China, India and Indonesia—account for over half of all funds devoted to population in the developing world.