Resolution of UNFPA Funding Issue Imminent

As the world's top HIV/AIDS scientists, activists, government officials, and nongovernmental organizations convene in Barcelona, Spain this week for the XIV International AIDS Conference, rumblings from the U.S. Administration suggest it may soon end its support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which plays a key role in the U.N.'s HIV/AIDS prevention activities as related to reproductive health.

In addition to providing essential reproductive health services, UNFPA engages in HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, and advocacy campaigns across the globe, and is the world's second largest donor of condoms for HIV/AIDS prevention. In spite of UNFPA's critical role in the international campaign to slow the HIV/AIDS pandemic, however, the White House appears to be leaning toward canceling entirely the $34 million U.S. contribution approved by Congress last winter.

UNFPA Funding Decision Imminent?

According to a recent Washington Post article, the Bush Administration will announce its decision regarding U.S. support for UNFPA sometime after July 15, nearly ten months into the fiscal year.

What's at stake is the $34 million allocated for UNFPA by Congress as part of the foreign aid bill for FY 2002. Since January these funds have been in limbo, depriving UNFPA of much needed monies for its reproductive healthcare and HIV/AIDS prevention efforts. President Bush froze these funds in response to concerns raised by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) regarding the Fund's program in China. At the White House's direction, the State Department sent a three-person team to China to investigate, hinging any formal decision regarding UNFPA on the outcome of the team's report. The delegation returned in May, and it is expected that their findings will be made public at the time the White House issues its decision.

Nonetheless, the White House has allegedly already instructed the State Department to "devise" a plan to eliminate this year's funding for UNFPA, according to the Washington Post article.

Population Action International President Amy Coen remarked, "If the rumors are true, it appears the White House is prepared to sacrifice the well-being of some of the world's poorest women for short-term, domestic political gains."

A triumph of politics over fact - is this really about UNFPA's China program?

While it is widely acknowledged that problems exist with Chinese population policies, international delegations sent to visit UNFPA's programs consistently report that the UNFPA is part of the solution in China, helping promote voluntary family planning and positively influencing attitudes toward women's reproductive healthcare.

UNFPA's China program is approved by the Fund's Executive Board, which consists of 36 U.N. member States including the United States, and adheres strictly to the voluntary, human rights-based approach to reproductive health and family planning stipulated by the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The program covers 32 Chinese counties that have abolished family planning quotas and targets, and aims to replace compulsory use of family planning and birth quotas with good counseling and informed consent, a greater range of contraceptive method choices, and higher quality services.

Since 1999, nearly 60 delegations and 145 diplomats from around the world have visited UNFPA's China program. None of them have found any evidence to suggest that UNFPA is doing anything other than making the situation better.

Ironically, not one penny of the U.S. contribution to UNFPA has gone toward the China program for the past eight years, due to legislative restrictions. Instead, U.S. funds are held in a restricted account. Should the U.S. withhold its entire contribution, the programs that will suffer most are those in the 140 other countries where UNFPA works.

UNFPA funding in focus: Background on the debate

The dispute over the U.S. contribution to UNFPA began in January, when the U.S. administration froze the $34 million UNFPA allocation approved last December by Congress as part of the FY02 foreign aid bill. The freeze came in response to a request by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a bitter opponent of UNFPA, who asked President Bush to invoke the Kemp-Kasten provision and deny UNFPA the funds, which were appropriated by Congress after careful negotiation and with strong bipartisan support. For more on Kemp-Kasten, see "Legislative Background: The Kemp-Kasten Amendment."

Accusing the Fund of "complicity in forced abortion and sterilization" in China, Rep. Smith's letter cited testimony by the right-wing fringe group Population Research Institute (PRI), alleging human rights abuses in one of the counties in China covered by the current UNFPA program. While PRI's claims remain unsubstantiated, they have successfully blocked U.S. support for UNFPA nearly ten months into the fiscal year.

Recently, as part of a supplemental spending bill, UNFPA supporters in both the House of Representatives and the Senate offered amendments directing the President to take action regarding the $34 million UNFPA contribution. The supplemental spending bill heads next to conference to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions. It is expected that Conferees will take up the bill soon after the July 4th recess.

Questionable source of allegations against UNFPA

The controversy surrounding U.S. support of UNFPA appears to stem from the work of one organization alone - an organization that is an avowed opponent of UNFPA and of efforts to ensure access to family planning: the Population Research Institute (PRI).

• PRI has a history of launching inaccurate media campaigns in its endeavors to advance its anti-family planning, anti-choice, agenda. PRI consistently describes UNFPA and its staff as "abortionists," and "killing machines," despite the fact that UNFPA supports neither abortion services, counseling, or even advocacy on abortion.
  
  
• UNFPA: Proven track record of saving women, children's lives
  Since 1969, UNFPA has played a critical role in expanding family planning and reproductive health services to over 140 countries, including HIV/AIDS prevention. These programs are essential to the health and well-being of women.

Withholding U.S. funding for UNFPA not only undercuts the Administration's alleged support for women's rights, but could also severely destabilize the scope of UNFPA's activities. U.N. officials estimate that the loss of U.S. funding could undermine their capacity to prevent 800,000 abortions and the deaths of 4,700 mothers and 77,000 children under the age of five. It will also jeopardize UNFPA's international AIDS prevention programs.

For more information, see PAI's fact sheet, Why the United States Should Continue Funding for UNFPA.

Legislative background: The Kemp-Kasten Amendment

The funding for UNFPA is being threatened under authority granted to the White House under a little-known provision of law called the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which was first incorporated in foreign aid appropriations bills as an amendment in 1985. Kemp-Kasten prohibits foreign aid funding for any organization that, as determined by the President, supports or participates in the management of a program of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization. The Reagan and Bush administrations interpreted the language very broadly, resulting in presidential determination that UNFPA was ineligible for funding because of its projects in China.

That same year, however, a review of UNFPA programs by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) determined that UNFPA neither funds abortions nor supports coercive family planning practices through its programs. Since then, various studies of China's family planning program have documented its compulsory nature and the presence of coercion in China's program overall, but UNFPA has never been implicated in any coercive practices. These findings had no impact on the Reagan Administration however, and UNFPA was still denied funding.

The Clinton Administration formally announced it would resume funding UNFPA in May of 1993. Using its authority under the Kemp-Kasten amendment, the Administration gave $14.5 million to UNFPA the following August. In subsequent years, U.S. funding for UNFPA has fluctuated, although a contribution has been made in every year except 1999. Funding for FY 2001 was at $25 million; the foreign aid bill negotiated this past December included $34 million for UNFPA.

Last year, the Bush Administration again reviewed UNFPA's activities and determined that UNFPA was not in violation of Kemp-Kasten. For the Administration to now consider backtracking on its commitment to this agency threatens to undermine the efforts of family planning and women's rights advocates, health workers, and women and families everywhere - especially in the regions where UNFPA works.

Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.