Implementing Reproductive Rights: Population Debates and Institutional Responses to the New Agenda

This paper briefly traces the evolution of population-development debates and discusses related changes in international population policy. The politics of the latest shift – the consensus around reproductive rights – are explored in more detail. The paper then reviews the way in which three very different organisations concerned with reproductive health policy have responded to the reproductive rights agenda. The organisations included were the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR), the International Federation of Family Planning Associations (IPPF) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). An informal interview with policy staff and secondary materials were used to describe how the WGNRR, IPPF and DFID respectively saw their roles with respect to establishing and promoting reproductive rights in developing countries