A considerable effort has been devoted all over the world during the last decade on improvement in management of population programmes. This paper reviews experiences in selected developing countries and addresses the following three questions: 1. What has been the contribution of the quality of management to performance of the population programmes? 2. What types of management improvement assistance has been attempted during the seventies and with what results? 3. What has been the role of management assistance efforts by agencies/organizations external to the program in bringing about such improvements? The review suggests that management at clinic levels seems to affect their performance; however, at higher levels the efforts of policies, leadership, resource allocation and environment raise many definitional measurement and methodological issues in assessing contribution of quality of management to performance.