847 



THE PEACE CX)RP8 



Since 1966, the Peace Corps has also been involved in family plan- 

 ning progress, though on a limited scale. Some 100 volunteers are work- 

 ing in established national programs or in programs set up through 

 local initiative. This assistance is furnished only to those countries that 

 have asked for it. In some countries Peace Corps assistance is techni- 

 cal, using physicians and highly skilled nurses. In other places gener- 

 alist volunteers are used in the education and training aspects of the 

 program and in staff referral centers. 



THE AGEXCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DE\T2LOPMENT 



AID has the most extensive responsibility in the U.S. effort to help 

 the LDCs check the steady climb in population in the third world and 

 to restore equilibrium to the food/population balance. That responsi- 

 bility is centered in the Office of Population, imder AID's Bureau for 

 Technical Assistance. In addition, there are population officers in 

 aid's regional bureaus in Washington and in its missions abroad. 



Consideration of space precludes a full discussion of AID activities 

 hut what follows may be taken as typical. AID views action to 

 reduce high birth rates as primarily a task in extension education. 

 People need to know, first, the advantages of a lower birth rate, then 

 how to achieve it, and then where to obtain clinical advice and con- 

 traceptive supplies. 



Since the success of population programs depends on mass public 

 support and on millions of individual decisions to practice contracep- 

 tion, programs of information and education, particularly through 

 mass media of communication, have drawn active AID encourage- 

 ment. The Agency has supported such programs in India, Pakistan, 

 Korea^ Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, and other countries. It has 

 also aided private organizations working in this field, such as the In- 

 ternational Planned Parenthood Foundation and the Pathfinder Fund. 

 A project at the East -West Center at the University of Hawaii which 

 would provide a continuing inventory, analysis, and evaluation of in- 

 formation/education/communications support activities, and would 

 train specialists in this field, is considered to be one of the most im- 

 portant population activities of the Agency. AID also makes an 

 effort to interest national youth groups in the population problem. 

 ' But it sees the principal means for fostering information, education, 

 and communications in the programs undertaken by the developing 

 countries themselves. To assist such programs AID provides financial 

 aid, commodities, training, consultant assistance, and other help. 



Support of research is another major function of AID in the field 

 of population. It emphasizes applied or "goal directed" research, which 

 will contribute to tne success of AID-assisted population programs. 

 Four areas of research are particularly pertinent: (1) descriptive 

 demography; (2) population dynamics ; (3) operational research ; and 

 (4) the development of new or improved methods of fertility regula- 

 tion, more suitable to conditions in the LDCs. Some typical projects 

 in these areas are as follows: (1) Establishment of population labora- 

 tories at universities in various LDCs which would seek to improve 

 the reliability and predictive value of the data used for population 



