For researchers working on historical population issues and interested lay persons, the Carl Wahren papers are a gold mine. See examples below, described by Carl himself, an advisor to TOP from our inception.

By Frank Götmark

Throughout his career spanning over 40 years, Carl Wahren collected population material for the future, increasingly aware of its importance as the subject became taboo. Many of the notes and articles are in English, with some in Swedish and French. Fortunately, our National Archive decided to set up a personal archive with Carl’s material, now available here. Many thanks to Carl’s daughters Anna and Filippa, and to Jessica Andersson at the National Archives (”Riksarkivet”) for valuable help.

Most of the Carl Wahren Archive at the National Archive in Täby, Sweden, is hard copy material or recordings. But during a couple of years before he passed away, Carl wrote a personal digital chronological archive in the form of a 54-page Word file, available here (and at the National Archive too). Below, we present examples of his writings in this file, containing his later reflections on international events and documents and spanning his entire career:

1966 – Wahren worked for SIDA (the Swedish International Development Agency)

Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of Experts on Programmes in Fertility (12 – 16 December, United Nations, New York). I (Carl Wahren) was one of the three experts representing Europe. UN Secretary General U Thant had invited 10 experts from the world to advise the United Nations for the very first time about possible programs in fertility. …. we managed to get the concept “family planning” mentioned in a few places in our report, i.e. in an official UN document!

1969 – Wahren worked for SIDA

Sweden signs family planning aid pact. Article in a Malaysian daily newspaper. Malaysian Minister: “Indeed I feel it is this kind of assistance that the richer countries should give because in this way there will be less suffering and poverty in the world”.

1972 – Wahren worked for SIDA

Yearly meeting of Save The Children, led by Ulla Lindström, former minister of development and terrific supporter of family planning. Ulla Larson, Carl Wahren, and more, state that many unwanted children are born – the woman wants family planning but the man stops her. And in total poverty when there is nothing to plan, unwanted children continue to be born – and illegal abortions are rampant. Successful countries are discussed. Taiwan has implemented a subsidy to families that decide to forgo childbirth – these “reverse child benefits” help poor families send already born children to school.

1974 – Wahren worked for SIDA

Time to Ration the Number of Kids (Swedish: “Dags för oss att Ransonera Barnen”). Interview with Carl Wahren in the leading Swedish daily Expressen on 30th December, when on New Year’s Eve the theme of the paper was to look into the future. Wahren points out that today in modern Sweden, every aspect of life is regulated for every citizen – from birth to death. Except – the number of kids to be born! So why is it so important to legislate for every aspect of our individual and collective behaviour (school, health, military service, driving, civil laws, taxes) if it is totally up to each one of us to decide how many children we produce? This article led to a strictly phenomenal amount of publicity around the world. Journalists were sent from Italy to interview Wahren, the Vatican compared my views to those of Hitler (sic!) and articles kept popping up world-wide for more than a year, by which time my name was slightly changed.

Svenska Dagbladet: “The catastrophe is already inevitable” (Swedish: “Katastrofen är redan ett faktum”). Monica Anrep-Nordin quotes Carl Wahren about his pessimism in view of increasing starvation in the Sahel due to serious drops in rainfall and rapid population increase. NB: Wahren cites new research from the glaciers and pollen that a climate change is probably on its way.

1981 – Wahren was Secretary General of the IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation)

Interesting letter from Hans Blix to Anders Forsse. Hans Blix, at the time Sweden’s Foreign Minister or Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry, and as such responsible for foreign aid in the government. Anders Forsse was Director General of SIDA. As far as I can see, Blix was taking a far more positive view on family planning than SIDA. Alas, I have no access to Forsse’s letter on population/family planning to Blix. But it is fascinating to see how the top Foreign Ministry representative gives very positive arguments to radically increase support for family planning and, as far as I can judge, contradicting SIDA’s suggestions about family planning failures. I somehow think that Hans Blix, a friend and fellow from the Liberal Party, had contacted me at the IPPF to provide him with supportive arguments. His references to various recent conferences (NB: no Swedish participants), where I was a speaker, leads me to that conclusion. Some anti-family planning “feminist” views with leftist ideological background had popped up within SIDA. That is probably the background to this interesting letter at the highest level of the Swedish bureaucracy.

1988 – Wahren was head of the Aid Management Division at the OECD

Carl Wahren replies in a letter to the editor of Hufvudstadsbladet after having received information from Finnish friends according to which an official from SIDA in a recent meeting in Finland on women in developing countries had expressed the view that family planning assistance had “failed miserably” and that family planning in developing countries was a “disgusting thing” and against the interests of local women. This is very interesting, an example of the beginning Swedish “contra-revolution” against family planning launched from a small group of mostly women within the Swedish aid agency. Cairo 1994 was a manifestation of that movement, linking fundamentalist religions with some rather extreme forms of Western feminism. Wahren’s reply underlined the positive aspects of helping poor women to be in control of their reproductive wishes, and to fight illegal backstreet abortions, through family planning programs. He reminds readers that 150 nations stressed family planning as a human right in the Mexico City World Conference.

1989 – Wahren was head of the Aid Management Division at the OECD

Confidential OECD/DCD report (Carl Wahren) from high-level discussions with key people in UNDP including Administrator William Draper III, The Population Council leadership, UNIFEM, UN Population Division, UNFPA’s Ex. Director Nafis Sadik + staff, Akio Matsumura (founder of the Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, Congressman Jim Scheuer (Democrat, New York). Discussions centered on upward revision of demographic forecasts, dwindling donor interest, co-ordination in policy and strategy, worries about African developments.

1994 – Wahren was head of the Aid Management Division of the OECD

“Pre-Cairo Seminar in the Swedish Parliament”. Carl Wahren, OECD, a keynote address 24 February, to a pre-Cairo Seminar in the Swedish Parliament, organized by SILC, The Swedish International Liberal Centre. Participants included parliamentarians, foreign ministry and SIDA officials, and NGO’s. Good media coverage with substantial subsequent reporting. My impression was that the heated discussions about micro vs. macro-perspectives on population dynamics had softened a bit. But focus was certainly on “reproductive health” whereas the many devastating effects of rapid population growth were often denied, or at least played down. According to the report, I left Stockholm with the hope that after years of ideological quarrels, Sweden would be on its way back to a leadership position in population/family planning. Alas, I was far too optimistic!

Carl Wahren: Mission to New York (11–16 April). My participation in the third and final week of preparations for the Cairo Conference proved extremely useful. The Vatican and feminist groups, mostly from the global North, were enormously active and hundreds of amendments to the excellent Secretariat draft were proposed. The relatively new concept “reproductive health” demonstrated major differences of opinion about key population issues. Environmental linkages to demography met considerable resistance. Lobbying was incredibly intensive – around the clock. This time there was no basic North/South divide (as in Bucharest ´74 and Mexico City ´84). It was issues such as family planning, ecology, etc that split people. Wahren chaired a preparatory population DAC (Development Assistance Committee) meeting among the donor community.

1995 – Wahren was head of the Aid Management Division at the OECD

Carl Wahren: OECD Mission report from Donor Workshop on Implementing Reproductive Health Programs (New York 12-14 June). The major donors tried to understand what the Cairo language really meant. Strong statements were made that family planning would remain a key component of reproductive health. Some complained that few requests were received in Reproductive Health. Interestingly, officials from recipient countries accused the donor community of sometimes falsely referring to “indigenous cultural problems” whereas such factors were indeed imported through religious and political foreign influences! Report worth reading today.

2021

Carl Wahren: “Rights and responsibilities in population policy”. Blog published by The Overpopulation Project, University of Gothenburg, on 12 January

A robust account of human responsibility, applied to humanity’s economic and demographic decisions, is the missing link in environmentalists’ endeavors to save our planet. Contemporary humanity has been misled by promises of rights without responsibilities, individual gains without concern for the common good or, indeed, the rights of future generations. Rights must be balanced with responsibilities.