POLITICS OF POPU'L.TI01 March 9, 1973
Ilid-t.ern TaRke Icorm
(due on acdnoerday MarchL 14 clan:r)


HiOV ARE STINS IN LR,.. (ote : ITh is if thei name of a mythical coun-
try in Latin A.aer:ia. GJ Al. ,? a, one f my students once

You are the Chief of Develoroent P:laning for Alogr-a, a country of
10 million people, annual population -r owthi. rate of 5.2 percent,
annia,. increase in GrTI aeragin: 4 percent over the past decade,
and writh a por capital incono of S210.00 pe year. Sixty-five por-
ceu't of the wrorkforoe is in agriculbture (40 percent on large
iacindqas, the balance on smaller holdings averaging 1 acre each);
5 peroTIe work in. rini:ng, 13 percent in manufacturing and the balance
in lthio tertiary or service sector (oJ.ten this means no nore than
"disg.ised tui.employment" becauaeo raar-" ork casually at day labor or
cell a feL razor blades or pocket co'ibs or magazines on the street).
AlO .:rfa is 67 percent m::ral; the ren~ of the population lives in
provincial tounis .ad 6.village over J0,000 (10 percent of the people)
or in 'tho capital (23 percent of th, people),
Alegraa has twro main oexpcorts: toe .inetal tungong, used as an alloy
in manufacturing metal pridu.c-s a-d q3 l ,ias the latter a cash crop
produced mainly on ten LcE a-; coast.i plantations You fear a cheap
synthetic substitute ifor tiungtong Yven now is being perfected; mean-
while, copelias (which in the past brought a good- price on the world
market -- at least in years when Lhe crop wasn't spoiled by too much
rain or drought) are suifeu:ng incre:asin competition from several
African countries which .have stared to Srow them, Because of the
good price copelias brought in th. world market in the past, Alegrfa
has neglected other agricultural possibilities -. indeed it doesn't
even grow enough food to meet domratic needs and must import approxi-
mately 20 percent of its domestic food supply. In years when
copelias were plentxiful oad brought a good price, this wias not a
serious problem and there was no s rain on foreign exchange to buy
food abroad; in year., ihein. the cro. failed, the people suffered misery
an h r aun r nd thero .as n.ot enough in the dollar account to buy
capital goods (n.ci-:;.,') and o pt: doi, i-frastructure to expand
industry and find n.e jo In djrooi.h- .:, too, nany more people
migrate from the ecoi.z :. .:C to the ..apital -which has doubled in
size in the past fo'i:~u;een years, pa: ing severe strain on all urban
servioeso.
Sone 50 percent of the people of AlEc/.'ia are illiterate, with func-
tional illiteracy adding about 15 pct'cent more to this figure (i.e.,
people who once iknew how to read an wirrite a little, but have for-
gotten because they never had a sharce to use their knowledge). You
have two universities, to which the childrenn of obreros workingg
class) have yet to be admitted, Tho;n, who do study concentrate
mainly on law, the humanities and medicine
Life expectancy in Alegrfa is 41.2 ye,,rs for males, 43 years for
females. At this juncture, public health campaign funded by inter-
national agencies and agricultural irMrovements (providing more food-
stuffs than in the decade,3 before World War II) have caused the death












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a s-al;:e ~ in "hr .. "'l health
he v-aun to >'ii :7cc' :nla in e'acioating poverty
:...,

-:::j -i;he y.i,;e.ri^ e an& cp:ci3s fo0r de-vOelopnment available to
-dou;. re$.,f it.2oring fotr the .t.in..- b"ing. ay political obstacles or
rami-.fiations (wthicLh we'l .. lt .bt President grappl.e with later on).,
Tsake into .i-'LcOr', .ho'wO:.re:,- the 3JJiitations imposed by the economic
social and. Demio.'.':.. s.T:icsr a i .iG the C i'hts, a nd wrrite
no me tan ~..r "":.T tfor their equivalent
in nea-t er^:f.L*". ;)


On i a, s iAth (r *ec.:.le,. -T. be nut -;o .:. ,!, :at from exam)
ouali-ne as zc'r*'.-...." a.; ;. c' co. *b.. + ';: : of your research project
and tle E,.- of y-u ow-. i:.v'eLic:..' If you l oTrhot kid of
utedia you r:o TCoinJg o uSe -i com:m-icate you, imfornation, let me
i", on .that, .;oC., I.f .* :s, b..i'l<, bring- in your topic and "well
see if the ,:-. can help I you or,