Funding cut could affect maternal mortality

The US government's decision to stop funding the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) could have a critical impact on the agency's programmes in Pakistan. Dr Olivier Brasseur, head of the UNFPA in Pakistan, told IRIN on Wednesday that the US decision, in addition to cuts from other donors, would reduce his agency's spending power in the country this year from US $7 million to US $5 million. The US $2 million dollar cut is sure to affect UNFPA programmes aimed at reducing the maternal mortality rate, which at 352 per 100,000 live births, is one of the highest in the region. In fact, said Brasseur, in some parts of Pakistan, like in Thatta near Karachi in the south, the maternal mortality rate was as high as 1,000 per 100,000 live births. The agency's help in reducing such deaths, he said, was especially important in a country like Pakistan, where government spending in the social sector remains inadequate. "The US contribution to the core funding of UNFPA accounts for more than 10 percent. Already UNFPA is going through a very stretched budgetary situation, so the fact that the US is not funding UNFPA obviously does not improve the situation ... All the [UNFPA programme] components are going to be scaled down in proportion," said Brasseur. The US government announced on Monday that it was withdrawing its US $34 million allocation to the agency because of its association with China's family planning policies - which reportedly advocate abortion to enforce its one-child-per-couple preference. The UNFPA hit back, saying that it neither condoned nor involved itself in forced abortions to control the population in China, but will not be able to do much this year to regain the congress-voted money.