The population scare has raised its ugly head again
Since the 1950s when Third World people began to over-breed their European counterparts, the latter got scared. Europeans feared among other things that competition for developing countries raw materials would lower their standard of living. To avert this threat they recommended that Third World countries practice birth control through contraception. Researchers, commentators and policy makers at state and non-state levels painted a very bleak picture that needed to be addressed on an urgent basis. Statements likening population growth to a bomb by Paul Ehrlich and nuclear war by Robert McNamara occupied center stage in the development discourse. “Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank in the 1970s, compared the threat of unmanageable population pressures with the danger of nuclear war [McNamara had been secretary of defense before joining the World Bank]”(The Economist 2006). International conferences including those at the UN were held, expert reports were produced and institutions such as the Population Council and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) were set up. Developing country governments were advised or forced to undertake urgent measures of birth control or they would not get international assistance. In the rush to prevent this ‘catastrophe’, inappropriate or wrong assumptions, omissions and commissions were made and the prevailing circumstances particularly in Africa that was decolonizing were not properly assessed much less understood.