House Committee Rebuffs Administration on UNFPA Funding

Appropriations Committee earmarks UNFPA funds, requires release by July

May 10 - In a sharp rebuke of the Bush Administration’s decision to back out of a carefully-crafted, bipartisan compromise to fund the UN Population Fund in the current fiscal year, the House Appropriations Committee approved language at midnight last night that would force the Administration to release full funding for UNFPA by July 10, 2002.

In December, 2001, Congress and the Administration agreed on a fiscal 2002 Foreign Operations funding plan that provided $34 million to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

President Bush signed the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill (Public Law 107-115) on January 10, 2002. Despite the fact that the compromise was agreed to by White House negotiators and leaders of both parties in the Congress, President Bush has not released funds for UNFPA, the world’s international family planning leader.

Supporters of international family planning have been fighting since January to ensure that UNFPA funding is released. Yesterday, the Republican chair of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz) led the effort to force the Administration to release the funds, and was joined by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY). Early this morning, the House Appropriations Committee narrowly approved, 32-31, a Lowey amendment to earmark and release UNFPA funds by July 10, 2002.

Action by the House Appropriations Committee comes on the eve of the departure of a delegation selected by the Administration to review UNFPA activities in China, which family planning opponents have charged are associated with coercive practices. A UNFPA delegation and a recent British team, as well as every other funder of UNFPA, have concluded that the agency’s efforts in China do not involve any coercive practices and in fact are encouraging Chinese authorities to relax the rigid, one-child policy and to adopt programs built on voluntarism and informed consent.

UNFPA’s program in China, approved by the Fund's Executive Board of 36-member States, adheres strictly to the highest standards of voluntarism and human rights. At the insistence of UNFPA, Chinese authorities have agreed to abolish family planning quotas and targets in the 32 Chinese counties in which it operates. An independent fact-finding mission in October 2001 found that found that the Fund's program in China is playing an important catalytic role in the reform of reproductive health services from an administrative approach to a client-oriented approach that promotes informed choice of contraceptive methods through information, education and counseling.

The loss of U.S. funding is already having a significant impact on UNFPA activities. Recently, UNFPA said that the delay in US funding was causing cuts in personnel and programs. If the Bush Administration denies funding altogether, UNFPA estimates that it could lead to as many as “2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4700 maternal deaths and 77000 infant and child deaths.”

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