Demography and ideology: historical paths and the challenges of Cairo+10

Abstract

The article provides an overview of the debate on population and development as it has evolved in the last two hundred years and offers a synthetic analysis of ideological positions taken by the diverse political and social actors that have been involved in the disputes regarding the subject in different historical moments. The paper emphasizes the evolution of the debate from the 1950’s on, giving special attention to the international conferences on population that have occurred in that period, in particular the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) that took place in Cairo (1994). The article also examines the unfoldings of ICPD in the last ten years and within that analyzes few elements of the demographic debate as well as of political and policy injunctions that may influence the process known as Cairo + 10 that will develop in 2004, when the implementation of ICPD in Latin America and the Caribbean will be reviewed.