Commitments to reproductive health care in shortfall - UNFPA

World leaders were criticised on Wednesday for falling far below global commitments to spend US $17 billion a year on improving reproductive health care. Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said underspending was resulting in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths each year. "This is of serious concern, as there are already serious gaps in the provision of services, and serious shortfalls of contraceptives, condoms and other essential supplies," she said. Addressing the EU/African, Caribbean and Pacific group's conference being held in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, she said the global community was capable of meeting the funding gap inasmuch as it was channelling $18 billion a day into military spending. The delegates at the conference were told that millions of women and children were dying or succumbing to diseases each year due to inadequate health and family services. Moreover, by virtue of lack of access to contraceptives, many women were condemned to undergoing unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions and death. A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Inger Schorling told delegates that the number of deaths relating to reproductive health could be equated to one jumbo jet aircraft crashing every six minutes. The US government also drew criticism for its controversial "gag rule" blocking funding to organisations linked in any way to abortions. Steven Sinding, the director-general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), chided President George W. Bush’s government for imposing "unacceptable restrictions". Both UNFPA and the IPPF have seen their funding slashed by the "gag rule", which was also condemned by European parliamentarians attending the conference. "The US administration has put ideology above health concerns," said Ulla Sandbaek, another MEP. "The cutbacks in services and supplies caused by the global gag rule tie the hands of service providers, and by doing so compromise the health and wellbeing of millions of men women and children. Until overseas recipients of US assistance are free to inform and provide those in their care with every option for optimum health, the conditions that prolong poverty, illness, conflict and misery will persist," she added. Obaid pointed out that "making investments now in prevention also reduces future basic health-care costs". She recalled that at the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, the international community pledged massive funding increases. But a decade later, a lack of funding was "impeding progress" in fighting sexual health issues, and less than half the annual budget was being met. "The donor countries are not meeting their targets, and in fact have not even reached the halfway mark of their commitments made in Cairo," she told the delegates.