Anti-poverty goals at risk if reproductive health care not funded - UN official

The lack of donor support for reproductive health services is jeopardizing progress towards meeting global anti-poverty goals, the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned today.

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo, Egypt, developed countries agreed to provide an annual $6.1 billion by 2005 for reproductive health, including family planning. But they have fallen short by about $3 billion, according to UNFPA.

The developing countries mobilized $11.7 billion last year, out of their domestic target of about $12.4 billion, the agency says.

"A world that spends $800 billion to $1 trillion each year on the military can afford the equivalent of slightly more than one day's military spending to close Cairo's $3 billion external funding gap to save and improve the lives of millions of women and families in developing countries," said UNFPA chief Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.

Ms. Obaid warned that if the funding gap is not closed, "it is unlikely that any of the world's Millennium Development Goals will be met." Those targets, set at a 2000 UN Summit, aim to tackle a range of global ills by the year 2015.

She noted that there has been some progress, including the fact that "more and more women and couples are able to choose the number and spacing of their children," but cautioned against premature optimism. "The reality is that progress is uneven," she said. "At the mid-point of the Cairo Programme of Action, we need the strength and endurance of a marathon runner to meet our goals during the next decade."

Ms. Obaid's comments came as the UN Commission on Population and Development today opened a session in New York to assess progress made during the decade since the Cairo forum adopted its action plan.

Addressing the Commission, José Antonio Ocampo, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, cited studies showing that more pregnant women are now receiving antenatal care than they were a decade ago, "yet many women still lack access to care and the risk of maternal mortality remains unacceptably high."

"Without a solidly built and actively maintained foundation of political will and resources, both human and financial, the goals of the [Cairo] Programme of Action will not be fully achieved," he said.