Poverty is just caused by overpopulation, but people in poor countries have huge families. Why don’t you just tell them to have fewer kids?

This question needs to be addressed in two parts. The first addresses causes of poverty, the second looks at the issue of family planning.

There are countries, and regions within countries, where resources are strained because of a high population however World Vision does not subscribe to the view that poverty is a result of overpopulation. Therefore our projects do not include efforts to restrict population growth.

In fact, poverty has a number of causes: Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the UN Millennium Development Project lists structural challenges that prevent development, failing infrastructure, geographic isolation, lack of energy sources, disease and natural disasters.

Global economic structures that are weighted in favour of the wealthy and colonial and neo-colonial agendas have all contributed. These causes are multifaceted.

He is a world-renowned economist and has outlined key areas that need to be addressed in order to attack poverty. They are: Improving basic healthcare; investing in education; providing electricity; providing clean water and sanitation and boosting agriculture. With international co-operation, these can be achieved and even large families will be lifted out of extreme poverty.

Any family planning activities are about what is best for individual families, and family planning does not constitute a big part of our work – we are much more involved in what we consider to be core development activities such as education, agriculture, food security and livelihoods, clean water, access to healthcare, which attack the true causes of poverty as listed in the section above.

We do provide information about, and assist with access to, condoms. This is very important in high HIV prevalence areas, and especially with high-risk groups. At the same time, condoms are only one relatively small part of our HIV and AIDS response.

We do not promote or support abortion in any way, shape or form, nor do we refer people to any organisation that does.

Some World Vision projects provide information about "child spacing", as a way to ensure that parents are not stretched beyond their ability to cope financially and otherwise, and to help provide a healthy and stable family environment for each of their children.

This can include providing accurate and appropriate information about a variety of methods of family planning (including natural methods and contraceptives but excluding all forms of abortion), but people are left to make up their own minds about what is or isn't right for them.

We consider any form of coerced family planning, such as forced sterilisation, as a breach of fundamental human rights.