Planning Growth and Population. The Debate on Population and Development at the UN and the origins of UNFPA

The article, based on the available historiography, archival documentation, and UN official documents, analyses the debate on the population-development nexus that developed at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly (GA) and at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), as well as the role played by UN technical bodies that dealt with population issues, such as the ECOSOC Population Commission and the Population Division of the Secretariat. After a brief introductory paragraph illustrating the intellectual roots of the UN’s approach to world population issues, the essay illustrates the factors that pushed the organization and its specialized agencies towards an increasing involvement in population policies in the Third World, the support of some member states and the resistance of a part of the international community to the idea of fighting hunger and sustaining economic growth by reducing the size of families in the Third World.