UN: Rumours that the UN Population Fund supports abortion have resulted in $100 million funding being withheld, writes Denis McClean, in Geneva
The global fight against terrorism would be better served if the Bush administration restored funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University said yesterday as the agency presented its annual report in Dublin and other locations around the world.
Prof Jeffrey Sachs, named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world this year, praised the Irish Government for its continued support to UNFPA which he said was doing an excellent job in tackling poverty but had become a victim of "a highly political attack to satisfy the extreme right wing of the Republican Party".
Given the goals of the Bush administration in prosecuting the war on terror, it was deeply ironic that it should cut funding to an organisation seeking to bring peace and economic stability to many parts of the world through improved reproductive health services, said Dr Sachs.
UNFPA relies on voluntary contributions to assist developing countries to improve reproductive health and family planning services on the basis of individual choice. Over the past three years the US state department has withheld about $100 million (€82 million) in funding because of allegations, refuted by Dr Sachs and others, that it supports coercive abortions and forced sterilisation in China.
The shortfall has been made up by countries resisting US pressure to cut funding to UNFPA. During Mr Tom Kitt's tenure as Minister for Development, Ireland has doubled its support to the agency which is now exceeding €2.5 million annually.
By UNFPA's estimates, the money withheld by the Bush administration could have helped prevent as many as six million pregnancies, 2.4 million abortions, more than 14,000 maternal deaths and over 200,000 infant and child deaths.
According to the new head of the Irish Family Planning Association, UNFPA's partner in Ireland, Mr Niall Behan: "It's very disappointing as it's not based on factual information. It's really striking at the poorest of the poor who cannot get social justice without having access to reproductive health services. UNFPA does not support coercive abortion. Bush appears to be saying you can tackle poverty and HIV/AIDS without supporting UNFPA."
Mr Brendan O'Brien, the Cork man who heads UNFPA's knowledge sharing branch in New York, was in Dublin for yesterday's launch and said UNFPA continued to engage with the Chinese government to convince it to take a human rights-based approach to family planning.
"We have seen a drop in abortions in areas where UNFPA is working. If you offer people choices they will behave responsibly. Our policy is to engage with the Chinese government and influence them appropriately," he said.
He added that a pilot family planning programme, run jointly by UNFPA and the Chinese government, banned coercive abortions in 32 Chinese counties and succeeded in controlling population growth. It is hoped to expand the programme to a further 800 counties.
After testifying to Congress in May 2001, that UNFPA did "invaluable work", US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell came up with a Catch-22 justification for the decision to cut funding: "Regardless of the modest size of UNFPA's budget in China or any benefits its programs may provide, UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."
Mr Powell linked his new point of view to the "Kemp-Kasten" amendment, a law which prohibits the US from funding organisations that "support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion". An independent state department-backed inquiry which visited China to examine its one-child policy and coercive abortion programmes, found UNFPA did not support such programmes.
Reproductive health experts and family planning advocates are dismayed over the US targeting of UNFPA given the crucial role the US played 10 years ago this month when 179 countries met in Cairo and adopted a 20-year Programme of Action at the International Conference on Population and Development.
The report issued yesterday, The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and the Global Effort to End Poverty, examines the patchy progress over the last decade but offers no analysis of the impact of US policy reversals in the reproductive health arena.
Executive director Ms Thoraya Ahmed Obaid summed up the UNFPA position recently: "Historically, the US has been a world leader in promoting reproductive health and family planning and we hope it will take up that role again. Promoting global health and alleviating poverty are urgent tasks that require strong partnerships and international co-operation."