PIP: Despite the spread of public and private family planning programs, population growth in developing countries continues to set records, according to the 1994 edition of the World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau. Increased emphasis on population problems may yet produce results, yet prospects for population growth in the Third World remain essentially unchanged. About 90 million people are added to world population every twelve months. Out of every 100 people added to this planet, 97 are born in the Third World. In 1994, world population was 5.6 billion: 1.2 billion in the industrialized countries and 4.4 billion in the developing countries. Women in the richer countries average only about 1.7 children each during their lifetime, while those in the poorer countries average 3.6. Third World birth rates are still far from the two-child family ideal that is needed to stabilize world population size. If Third World birth rates do not continue to decline, the population explosion envisioned in the 1960s could become a reality. Population growth is particularly rapid in Africa, where women average anywhere from five to eight children each. If Africa's current growth rate of 2.9% continues unchanged, the continent would double its population every 24 years. Family planning programs have begun to show some early success in Africa but the long term effectiveness is largely unknown. Long-range United Nations population projections assume that the two-child family will become the norm in all countries. Developing countries, such as Thailand and South Korea, have shown that lower, industrialized country-type birth rates are possible in the developing world. The evidence that the situation in these two Asian countries may be replicated elsewhere among the majority of developing nations is inconclusive, however.