The international concern with population issues increased since Bucharist conference of 1974 and continued through Mexico conference of 1984. These conferences discussed the subject of population growth and its effects on development and one of their results was that the concept of population policy shifted from family planning and reduction of population size to the necessity of incorporating population factors in development issues. At the Cairo conference of 1994, the emphasis was on the quality and improvement of living standards through a sustainable development perspective. Nationally, the government was concerned with population issues since the sixties, and this concern resulted in the formation of the National Population Committee (NPC) in 1971 as a voluntary organization.

  In 1978, the NPC became under the auspices of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The NPC played a distinctive role through its intensive efforts among politicians and senior officials by reflecting the importance of incorporating population factors in development plans and programs. The NPC held a series of national population conference in 1973, 1984, 1987 and 1994 to focus on the role of the population component in development and to raise the level of political commitment to the importance of population issues. During the Social Development Conference 1990 the National Population Policy was formulated and was approved by the Council of Ministers in December 1990. The policy summarized the population problems in Sudan in three main themes:

1. Congruence between economic growth and the rapid population growth.
2. Poor population characteristics.
3. Unbalanced distribution of population.

  Accordingly, the Population Strategy was incorporated in the National  
  Comprehensive Strategy (1992-2002) with respect to the following objectives:

1. Matching economic growth with population growth.
2. Upgrading population characteristics and maintaining population growth rates suitable with Sudan geographical space and that meet the strategy requirements.
3. Redistributing the population in a way that achieves development and reinforces national security and rationalizes internal and external migration.

   Because of growing belief in the importance of population issues, a provisional decree was issued in December 1994 to form the NPC as a governmental institution that caters for population affairs and that aims to implement the population policy by incorporating population factors in the process of development.