News Update: Budget wrap-ups and Countdown 2015

FY 2004 Omnibus Appropriations Signed Into Law
On January 23 President Bush signed the FY04 Omnibus Appropriations bill. The omnibus allocates $432 million for international family planning programs, which is $7 million more than the President's request, but $14.5 million less than last year's level. Support for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was earmarked for “up to” $34 million.

For the past two years the Bush administration has denied congressionally approved funding to UNFPA based on unsubstantiated charges by anti-family-planning activist groups that the Fund was complicit in human rights abuses in China. These claims have been consistently refuted by numerous high-level delegations that have visited China, and the Bush Administration's own fact-finding mission in 2002 found no evidence faulting UNFPA. Nonetheless, U.S. funds have been withheld from the UN agency. To help prevent a repeat episode, language was included in the omnibus bill that prohibits further withholding of funds without a presidential determination explicitly stating how UNFPA is in violation of the Kemp-Kasten amendment, the legislative tool used by the administration in July 2002 to deny UNFPA funding.

For a full summary of the provisions in the omnibus bill go to: http://www.populationaction.org/resources/publications/wash_pop_update/policyUpdate_12182003.htm.

White House Announces Budget for FY 2005 — UNFPA, International Family Planning Suffer Losses
The FY05 budget released by the White House earlier this month comes as a disappointment to the international development community. While the budget calls for more money for Presidential initiatives such as global HIV/AIDS programs and the Millennium Challenge Account, they fall well below the level promised. Furthermore, the FY05 request for seven core humanitarian and development accounts is almost $400 million below FY04 enacted levels, including a further $7 million cut for international family planning. Such cuts threaten to undermine global development efforts which President Bush himself has identified as critical to our country’s security, and will exact a disproportionate toll on the world’s poorest women and children. Regarding UNFPA, the FY05 budget does not contain a specific line-item for UNFPA, but $25 million appears to be set aside in the event that UNFPA is again deemed eligible for U.S. support.

The Countdown Begins
NGOs to Commemorate 10-Year Anniversary of the International Consensus on Population and Development
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), at which 179 countries pledged to make reproductive health services available to all by 2015. This international consensus comprised a 20-year plan to improve reproductive health and women’s status, while also slowing population growth. Consensus was also reached on the funds needed to provide such basic reproductive health services as family planning and maternity care in poorer countries, estimated at $17 billion for the year 2000.

While the world’s wealthiest countries agreed to provide one-third of that total, contributions to date fall far short — including those of the United States, whose fair share in 2000 was an estimated $1.9 billion. Nearly five years later, the United States continues to lag behind, not only in total dollars but also in terms of regressive policies — such as the Global Gag Rule* — that effectively undermine progress toward the goals of ICPD.

At the center of NGO efforts to mark this tenth anniversary is Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All, a collaborative initiative dedicated to assessing the progress and mapping the future for the key goals of ICPD. To learn more about what is being planned, please visit the official website at http://www.countdown2015.org.

Demography and Conflict: Research Findings Could Help Predict and Prevent Wars
Countries with high proportions of young adults, rapidly growing cities, scarcities of cropland and water, and high HIV/AIDS prevalence face a significantly higher risk of deadly civil conflict, according to PAI’s most recent publication, The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict After the Cold War. The new study finds that nations such as Costa Rica, Thailand and Tunisia — that have gone through the transition from short lives and large families to longer lives and smaller families, a process known as the "demographic transition" — are less vulnerable to civil conflict. This report contains policy recommendations that can be enacted now to help ensure a more secure future. It is available in PDF format at http://www.populationaction.org/securitydemographic.

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.