The role of international organisms in the evolution of population studies in Brazil: preliminary notes

Abstract

This article analyzes the influence of international donor agencies on the evolution of population studies in Brazil. The exceptional growth of demography in this country was generated, in part, by international concern with population growth and by the resources made available to us. International agencies that wished to influence population issues in Brazil had two choices. Until the Cairo Conference, USAID and UNFPA operated primarily through alliances with organizations that promoted family planning, related to fertility reduction. The Ford Foundation, the Pan-American Health Organization, the Population Council, and the Rockefeller Foundation chose a less direct strategy, which was more useful for Brazil. They encouraged the formation of a critical mass capable of taking the initiative for political thought in the domain of population. Directly or indirectly, this approach ended up benefiting researchers as well as the various learning and research institutions now existing in Brazil. The international donor with the greatest long-term influence in Brazil was the Ford Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation adopted a new approach to the financing of population studies, anticipating the vision drawn up in Cairo. Today, the post Cairo version of UNFPA is practically the only donor that continues to support us systematically, a situation that forces us to find new approaches in order to continue expanding the influence of population studies in the future.