Inter
Press Service, July 14, 2008
UN Predicts 12 Billion if Family Planning Falters
By
Thalif Deen
UNITED
NATIONS - The United Nations commemorated World Population Day Friday in the shadow
of a staggering array of grim statistics: an estimated 200 million women worldwide
want to delay or avoid pregnancy but are not using safe and effective family planning.
The world's current
population of 6.4 billion people is expected to rise to over 7.0 billion by 2012
-- and could reach 12 billion by 2050, if contraceptive use does not increase.
The U.N. Population
Fund (UNFPA) points out that 190 million women become pregnant every year, and
nearly 50 million resort to abortion. Meanwhile, unsafe abortions kill an estimated
68,000 women every year, and millions more suffer from long-term disability.
As
the United Nations focused on family planning this year, Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon warned Friday: "The rate of death for women as they give birth remains
the starkest indicator of the disparity between rich and poor, both within and
among countries."
He
said the benefits of family planning remain out of reach for many, especially
for those who often have the hardest time getting the information and services
they need to plan their families.
Demand
will only increase, he said, as more than one billion people ages 15-24 enter
their reproductive years.
UNFPA
Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid says that maternal deaths and disability
could be reduced dramatically if every woman had access to health services throughout
her life, especially during pregnancy and childbirth.
"Today
millions of women lack access to health services, which puts their lives at risk,"
she pointed out.
"Urgent
action is needed because the goal to improve maternal health is generating the
least resources and lagging the furthest behind," Obaid told IPS.
The
lack of resources to prevent maternal mortality comes at a time when the administration
of U.S. President George W. Bush has consistently withheld funds for UNFPA --
most recently last week -- primarily for domestic political reasons.
Asked
how funding cuts will impact on family planning and reproductive health in developing
nations, Tamara Kreinin, executive director of Women and Population at the United
Nations Foundation, said: "The impact of the U.S. withholding funding from
UNFPA for the past seven years has had serious implications for women and girls
around the world."
She
said the 34 million dollars that the United States has withheld each year is close
to 10 percent of UNFPA's regular income.
"This
income could have helped UNFPA prevent 2 million unintended pregnancies, 800,000
abortions, 4,700 mothers' deaths, and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths,"
Kreinin told IPS.
The
money could have also helped meet the current shortfall in family planning funding,
which stands at 550 million dollars, less than half of today's needed amount.
She also pointed
out that approximately 181 industrialised and developing countries, including
all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, contribute to UNFPA
to express their solidarity.
"By
once again not funding the leading voice for women needing reproductive health
care and family planning, the U.S. is significantly crippling efforts to improve
women's lives across the globe."
The
decision sends the message that the United States -- the most powerful nation
on earth -- is abdicating its crucial global leadership role when it comes to
the well-being of women and girls.
"That's
a stance that we cannot afford to take," Kreinin added.
The
top 10 donors for UNFPA in 2007 were: the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Britain,
Japan, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Spain and Canada.
Since
2002, the Bush administration has withheld a total of 235 million dollars from
UNFPA, including 40 million dollars which was held back last week, and that had
already been allocated by the U.S. Congress.
And
the administration has consistently cited UNFPA's programme in China, falsely
accusing the agency of providing "financial and technical resources"
for coercive abortions and sterilisations in that country. The UNFPA has denied
the charges.
Asked
about funding under a future U.S. administration, Anika Rahman, president of Americans
for UNFPA, says: "We are already well on our way to ensuring that our next
president is knowledgeable about the importance of global women's health."
"Together,
with the many supporters at Americans for UNFPA, we stand a good chance of ending
the stunning disregard our government has shown the world's women. Americans for
UNFPA is poised to rally our supporters and urge the next administration to not
only fund UNFPA, but also begin to make up for the 235 million dollars withheld
since 2002," Rahman added.
"We
are hopeful that moving forward, both the Republican and Democratic parties will
take leadership on these issues."
She
also said that efforts are already underway to ensure that the 2009 State Foreign
Operations Appropriations in the U.S. budget includes restored support for UNFPA.
Asked whether
universal access to reproductive health could be reached by the U.N.'s targeted
date of 2015, Kreinin of the United Nations Foundation told IPS that the United
Nations established the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as an internationally
agreed upon framework to reduce poverty and improve the well-being of the world's
population by 2015.
While
progress has been made to cut extreme poverty in half, advancement has stalled
on MDG5, which aims to improve maternal health, including reproductive health.
Better maternal
health and universal access to reproductive health by 2015 is unlikely because
of the decreasing level of funding for family planning and reproductive health
care and the increasing demand for these services, she added.
Kreinin
said that demand for contraceptives is expected to grow by 40 percent during the
next 15 years.
"To
make MDG5 a reality, the U.N. Foundation calls on all nations, including the U.S.,
to make investing in the health of our mothers, wives, daughters and sisters a
global priority," she added.
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