ABSTRACT
Widespread interest in fertility and its determinants developed towards the end of the 1960s. This interest, especially in the developing countries, was frustrated by familiar data problems including absence of information, out-dated figures, poor scientific standards and the difficulty of drawing international comparisons. In August 1971, at a conference of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), it was suggested that ISI should co-operate with the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) to carry out a series of fertility surveys in different countries. After consulting several demographers and international organizations, a project for a World Fertility Survey (WFS) was developed and submitted to the principal funding agencies (UNFPA and USAID). With the approval and financial support of these two agencies, the project began in July 1972 for an initial period of five years. In 1974, the World Population Conference lent further support to the WFS. The project, too ambitious to be completed in five years, was extended for a further seven years to finish in mid-1984. The project was designed to fulfill three major objectives:
to assist countries to acquire the scientific information that will permit them to describe and interpret the fertility of their population;
to increase national capabilities for fertility and other demographic survey research, particularly in developing countries;
to collect and analyze internationally comparable data on fertility and to make these available to researchers for comparative analysis.
