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POPULATION: U.S. Citizens Raise One Million Dollars for UN Agency

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 6 2003 (IPS) - A U.N. agency that suffered a 34-million-dollar cut in funding from Washington because of charges that it promotes abortions, is one million dollars richer after U.S. citizens launched a grassroots campaign to make up for the crippling loss.

Titled ”34 Million Friends of UNFPA" (the U.N. Population Fund) the project, driven mostly by email and word-of-mouth, has so far been confined almost exclusively to U.S. citizens, whose gifts have ranged from a single dollar to 25,000 dollars from an anonymous donor.

”The fact that the campaign was able to reach the one million dollar mark shows that the possibilities are endless,” says UNFPA’s Omar Gharzeddine.

Later this week, a European campaign is to be launched in the Belgian capital of Brussels under the title "Friends of UNFPA".

According to Gharzeddine, more than 100,000 people have contributed the one million dollars, all but 100 of the donations from the United States. ”It remains to be seen whether UNFPA would be able to get the whole amount (of 34 million dollars),” he told IPS.

”As important as that amount itself, is the confidence and support expressed by ordinary American citizens for the issues that UNFPA advocates,” he added.

Led by conservative religious groups, the administration of President George W. Bush decided last year to withhold 34 million dollars, accusing UNFPA of promoting abortions in China, a charge vehemently denied by the U.N. agency.

Werner Fornos, president of the Washington-based Population Institute, said, ”I am delighted with the success of the citizens’ campaign to fill the shameful void left by the Bush administration’s refusal to release 34 million dollars that Congress appropriated for UNFPA.”

”Reaching the million dollar mark this early in the effort is strong evidence that President Bush was by no means expressing the will of the American people,” Fornos told IPS.

The administration’s action reveals clearly that the White House is using opposition to abortion to conceal its more insidious opposition to family planning, he added.

A research team assigned by the U.S. State Department visited China last year and concluded, ”We find no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or force sterilisation in China. Indeed, UNFPA has registered its strong opposition to such practices.”

According to Fornos, the administration ”steamroll(ed) over a hard-fought decision by the U.S. Congress – the elected federal officials closest to the people – then over(rode) its hand-picked investigative team’s finding that not only did the UNFPA not violate U.S. law but that it was part of the solution rather than part of the problem of force and coercion.”

The UNFPA says all contributions will go directly into its core programmes aimed at providing universal access to reproductive health information and care in over 140 countries, virtually all of them in the developing world.

The agency estimates that 34 million dollars could prevent two million unwanted pregnancies a year, nearly 800,000 abortions and 4,700 maternal deaths.

The grassroots campaign was launched by two Americans, Jane Roberts, a retired 61-year-old teacher from California, and Lois Abraham, a 68-year-old lawyer from New Mexico.

The two volunteers, who did not know each other, had the same indignant reaction when the administration rescinded the 34 million dollars approved by Congress.

They emailed friends urging them to send a dollar each and contact other friends ”to help right this terrible wrong”.

”This little campaign has the possibility of changing the world a tiny bit,” says Roberts.

”Even though our government has chosen not to participate in the work of UNFPA, we the people are participating, and that is a wonderful message to send to the world.”

The International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 approved a massive programme of action to help developing nations in family planning and reproductive health.

International assistance for population activities increased from 1.3 billion dollars in the immediate pre-Cairo period in 1993 to 2.6 billion dollars in 2000.

”But the trend seems to have been reversed,” said a report released by the U.N. Commission on Population and Development last January.

Preliminary data put the figure for 2001 at 2.3 billion dollars, only 40 percent of the target of 5.7 billion dollars agreed at the conference in Cairo.