Women Fall Victims as Family Planning Resources Dwindle, Warns UNFPA

UNITED NATIONS, New York — The drastic decline in funding for family planning has created victims in the developing parts of the world, said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. The proportion of funds allocated to family planning in all population assistance has dropped from 55 per cent in 1995 to 9 per cent in 2004, said Ms. Obaid. This represents a fall from $723 million in 1995 to $442 million in 2004 in absolute dollar terms.

“The victims of this funding gap,” said Ms. Obaid, “have been poor women in poor countries who cannot exercise their reproductive rights and plan their families. It is a serious problem that needs to be urgently addressed.”

Today, she noted: “There are 200 million women in the developing world with unmet need for effective contraception. The result is increasing numbers of unwanted pregnancies, rising rates of unsafe abortion, and increased risks to the lives of women and children.”

Ms. Obaid said that investing in sexual and reproductive health services will be repaid much more in savings on other health and social services. Those resources will also go a long way in boosting economic growth and gender equality, reducing poverty, and helping to fight the economic and social devastation of HIV/AIDS.

In an address to the United Nations Commission on Population and Development today, Ms. Obaid cautioned that although funding for population assistance was on the rise, it was below current needs. Since 1994, she noted, health costs have increased substantially, particularly with the larger-than-expected scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, while the value of the dollar has dropped.

Ms. Obaid called on countries to increase investments to implement the Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). She also underlined the benefits of reproductive health care, including family planning, saying, “it is estimated that ensuring access to family planning alone would reduce maternal deaths by 20 to 35 per cent and child deaths by 20 per cent.”

During the same meeting, Hania Zlotnik, Director of the United Nations Population Division, said that between 1950 and 1987, the world population had doubled, from 2.5 billion to 5 billion persons. “If human life on earth is to remain sustainable,” she warned, “earth’s population will never double in size.”

Commenting on the ability of individuals and couples to determine the number of their children, Ms. Zlotnik said, “fertility reductions result in smaller families and allow parents to invest more on each child.”

Ms. Obaid also called for more world attention to the large youth populations in the least developed countries. “If we are to stand any chance whatsoever of achieving the development goals and building a better world for all,” she said, “we must reach out to young people. And we must do so urgently and with open arms.”

“To have a healthy and productive ageing population,” concluded Ms. Obaid, “we must ensure that we have a healthy and productive young population. Together, they will make development of societies a reality, so that we do have a world that is fit for all ages.”

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UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

Contact Information:

Omar Gharzeddine
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5028
Email: gharzeddine@unfpa.org