The United Nations World Population Conference 1974 will be held in August of next year. It will be a political gathering at which delegates speak for their governments and not as individuals, members of the academic community, or representatives of private organizations. As such, it will be the first of its kind concerned with population The 1974 conference will consider population trends and future prospects. It will take up the questions of the relationships among population and social and economic development, human rights, resources and the environment, and the family. A draft World Population Plan of Action will be considered. It is anticipated that certain parallel activities will be carried out simultaneously with the conference. The conference should succeed in focusing attention on population matters in national and universal perspectives. It should also advance the definition of national population policies and, from the totality of those, an international policy may emerge and find expression in the World Population Plan of Action.