PIP: Southern Africa's high rate of population growth and widespread poverty have serious implications for the region's social infrastructure. Large increases in the school-age population have undermined efforts to improve the quality of education since all resources are directed toward expansion of availability. To achieve a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:40 at the primary level and 1:35 at the secondary level, an estimated additional 50,000 classrooms would be required. Also jeopardized by high fertility is access to health services, safe water, and sanitation. In Mozambique, for example, where only 30% of the population has access to health services, the under-five years mortality rate is 297/1000 live births and the physician-population ratio is 1:37,970. Substandard housing, homelessness, congestion, deteriorating public services, pollution, and crime dominate urban areas. The single most effective intervention to reduce population growth in Southern Africa is female education. Women without a secondary education bear an average of seven children; if 40% of women attend secondary school, this drops to three children. Thus, governments must make gender equality a central focus of development planning and ensure that women are participants in this process. Property and inheritance laws that serve to increase the economic need for early marriage should be eliminated. Public health programs, including family planning, must be expanded. Finally, women's organizations should be strengthened and urged to foster female empowerment.