Evaluation of the integrated population and development planning (IPDP) contract

Special evaluation covers the period 10/79-6/82 and is based on document review, interviews with A.I.D. officials, and visits to projects in Rwanda, Senegal, and Mauritania. IPDP provides technical assistance (TA), training, and research in 22 countries. IPDP has responded well to ad hoc and special requests, and has strengthened LDC's population forecasting and analysis capabilities. The project has helped LDC planners build demographic models, improve their country's data bases, use computers, and train demographers and statisticians. IPDP has also conducted conferences and seminars and has sponsored research on possible solutions to population problems. More effort is needed, however, particularly in pronatalist African countries, to help LDC agencies and planners translate awareness of population issues into effective population policies. The IPDP staff function well as a team, although they may be overextended. In Rwanda, TA included a course in research methods, conferences in Dakar, Lome, and Baltimore, and work with the Futures Group in Research for Awareness of Population Impact on Development (RAPID) presentations. In Senegal, although family planning is a sensitive issue among the Muslim majority, a cadre of well-trained and concerned statisticians and demographers is present. The project has benefited training and research at two national agencies. A conference has been scheduled on population policy. In Mauritania, despite a high population growth, no population control policy exists due to perceived under-population and ethnic rivalry. Nevertheless, population/development interactions were promoted through IPDP conferences and work on a Human Resources Planning Model. Recommendations include concentrating future activities in only 10 countries; soliciting no new research; reexamining population and development policy, especially in sub-Saharan Africa; and developing mini-courses in computer science, demography, statistics, and the economics of population.