This work recounts the successful story of national and international approaches to the population question from the 1960s to the present, and examines the progress made in reducing rapid rates of population growth and high levels of fertility. It describes the evolution of national population policies by governments, their aims, successes and shortcomings, and explores the emergence of international agencies seeking to reinforce and underpin those commitments. This study draws on documents and sources, and assesses the achievements of the 1974 Bucharest World Population Conference, the 1984 International Conference on Population in Mexico and the several major national and international initiatives that followed them, up to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio. The book examines the prospects for a new international consensus in population, and considers the preparation for the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. The text is supplemented with annex materials.