The Hague - The world has largely embraced new thinking on stemming explosive population growth, but rich nations are not paying enough to change things on the ground.
That was the message yesterday as delegates from 180 countries wound up a week-long conference on curbing population growth now running at 78 million people a year - equivalent to a city the size of San Francisco every three days.
They were reviewing progress since a landmark 1994 population forum in Cairo, which agreed to focus efforts not just on contraception but on improving reproductive health and empowering women to decide how many children they want to have.
Even China - the most populous country with 1.25 billion people - seems to be having a second look at its controversial one-family, one-child policy. Last year Beijing allowed the UNFPA to launch a limited project based on the Cairo ideas.
But raising the health and status of women in poor nations, which account for 97 per cent of population growth, is costly.