摘要In the 1960s and 1970 s, attention was focused on rapid population growth and large scale family planning programs were launched in many developing countries.However, the paradigm for understanding fertility decline assumed that exogenous socioeconomic changes were necessary to reduce family size. By the mid-1990s, the standard model of the demographic transition had been all but discarded, partly there were numerous country experiences inconsistent with the model. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) emphasized women's broader needs, which were important but were promoted by reducing attention to population and the need for family planning. The timing of this shift was peculiar, because the Cairo proponents were depending on an already discredited model of reproductive behavior. The policy shift at Cairo undermined the political coalition that had supported international family planning since the 1960s. As a result of declining financial support, the health of women has deteriorated seriously in the past decade. Meantime,the countries that have been successful in lifting unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty were acting independently of the Cairo consensus.