Such increases are not wishful thinking. For example, the potential for growth in the multi-bilateral field is encouraging. Multi-bilateral funding has increased significantly, from $12 million in the early 1990s to over $25 million in 1996. Moreover, in 41 country programmes now in the pipeline, multi-bilateral components total more than $132 million.

Debt-swap arrangements are another potential source of funding for population programmes and projects. As of 1997, countries in which UNFPA operates owe roughly $2 trillion to development and private banks and to other financial institutions. Of this amount, $800 billion is bilateral, that is government-to-government debt. UNFPA is encouraging agreements between lenders and debtors to forgive a portion of that debt in exchange for the use of local resources by debtor countries to bolster their population and reproductive health programmes, along with other social development schemes. There is enormous scope for leveraging funding for population programmes through debt-swap agreements brokered by UNFPA.