Take Bangladesh, a country mired in poverty yet with a fertility rate only slightly higher than America thanks to a progressive family-planning policy.

ECONOMIST: Population booms, and busts

And in Iran, public policy and investment in family-planning services made the difference between rising fertility between 1979 and 1984 and falling fertility thereafter, not the rise in national incomes, nor female education.

ECONOMIST: Population booms, and busts

Israel and Egypt are the biggest recipients of U.S. aid in the package, which provides funds for multinational organizations like the World Bank and a raft of overseas policy initiatives from nuclear nonproliferation to family planning.

CNN: Clinton to sign bill reducing Third World debt

U.S. State Department officials and family planning groups such as Planned Parenthood said they expect Obama to overturn the "Mexico City" policy, first instituted by the Reagan administration.

CNN: Obama may reverse Bush policies on stem cells, drilling, abortion

This policy, instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, denied American funding to foreign family-planning organisations that gave information on abortion.

ECONOMIST: The fight to fund the Fund