This commitment went against the trend. Overall development assistance has fallen from an average of 0.33 per cent of GDP in 1992 to just 0.27 per cent in 1995, dropping in dollar terms from $60 billion a year to $55 billion.

In both 1994 and 1995 there were substantial increases in population funding. In 1995, a total of $9.5 billion was earmarked for population programmes and projects globally. Population assistance from donor countries in 1995 amounted to $2 billion—2.3 per cent of all official development assistance and the highest percentage reported in a decade.

The bad news is that the $2 billion devoted to population activities in 1995 was only a third of the $5.7 billion in donor assistance needed by the year 2000 to finance the Cairo Programme of Action. Since 1995, indications are that with a few exceptions donors have been reducing support rather than increasing it.

The consequences of such a shortfall will be felt far beyond the population field. Continued rapid population growth will wipe out gains already made in other crucial areas, such as extending school systems, improving primary health facilities, providing affordable housing, expanding public transport and road infrastructure, and managing critical natural resources, and such growth will work against progress in the future.

Population growth has slowed over the last two decades, partly as a result of better reproductive health care and family planning. Population programmes work—but lower fertility levels and slower population growth in future cannot be taken for granted. Over the course of the 1990s, for instance, just to maintain current rates of contraceptive use, about 100 million more couples will need access to reproductive health and family planning services. In order to extend access along the lines agreed at Cairo and increase contraceptive use, an additional 75 million couples will need services.

What happens after that depends on what happens now. Firm action to meet ICPD commitments will guarantee slower population growth in the years to come and all the benefits that will bring. Failure to act now will mean failure on a broader scale. For some countries, it will mean the difference between development and stagnation. For many individuals it will mean the difference between life and death.