This essay traces the actions taken by governments and private agencies in the past two decades to limit population growth and examines the growing emphasis on linking population and development concerns. It was presented to the annual conference of the Ford Foundation's International Division on September 22, 1975. The time between the end of World War II and 1964 was characterized by the dominance of private interest and activity. The period 1965 to 1970 was characterized by a proliferation of government family planning programs and by the entrance of bilateral government agencies as supporters of population and family-planning activity. The years 1970-1974 brought large increases in monetary support for family planning and increasing dominance in the field by the Agency for International Development (AID) and the multilateral agencies. As for future prospects, the author concludes that social progress should be given precedence over economic progress in development and that population phenomena should be viewed in the context of the entire constellation of development phenomena. Following the essay is a review of the Foundation's own programs in population, both past and present. (Author/RM)