Rwanda is a small, densely populated, and rapidly growing country. Population problems have long concerned the authorities, but the response to them has varied over time. With Rwanda already overpopulated in colonial times, the Belgian administration attempted to increase agricultural production and to export the excess population to the Belgian Congo and other neighboring countries. After independence, emigration was replaced by internal migration to less populated regions. In the emergency plan of 1966-70, the rate of population growth was underestimated and considered an unmodifiable given. By the 1977-81 plan, population appeared as a principal obstacle to development. A policy of reducing growth by spacing births was envisioned in 2 stages: 1 of research, training, and offering of family planning services, and a 2nd of extending the program to all health facilities in Rwanda. The 3rd development plan in 1982-86 was based on more realistic data from the 1978 census which showed a large population size and more rapid growth than had been expected. The 3rd plan's goal was to curb increases in the growth rate above its level of 3.7% and to prepare conditions for a future rate decline. Specific objectives were to postpone the age at 1st birth and limit childbearing after age 40. Strategies included passage of needed legislation, making family planning services available, and conducting a vast campaign to make the population aware of demographic problems. The current plan includes a population policy and is based on the need to achieve food self- sufficiency through intensified production and population control. Rwanda has gathered demographic and economic data, developed a demonutritional model, and is at the phase of integrating the population policy into planning for economic development. Elements of the current plan include improving the status of women by legal and other means, territorial management and creation of small rural development centers, public health interventions, educational and employment initiatives, and reduction of fertility through family planning. The objective is to increase contraceptive usage by 3% annually from its level of 3% in 1987. Some 17,000 persons are to be trained in interpersonal communication and charged with contacting households to make couples aware of the problems of demographic growth and the benefits of family planning.