United Nations Population Fund

About UNFPA

UNFPA, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities was established as a trust fund in 1967 and began funding population programmes in 1969. It was officially renamed the United Nations Population Fund in 1987. The original abbreviation, UNFPA, was retained.

As described in its mission statement, UNFPA promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

UNFPA is the world's largest international source of funding for population and reproductive health programs. The Fund is entirely supported by voluntary contributions of donor governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector groups and foundations and individuals, not by the UN regular budget. In 2006, 180 countries around the world – representing the vast majority of UN Member States, contributed $360 million to the regular resources of UNFPA. This was the highest number of donor nations and the largest amount of contributions to UNFPA since the organization began.

The Fund works with governments, at their request, in over 140 countries. In collaboration with other agencies and non-governmental organizations, it supports programs that help women, men and young people:

• plan their families and avoid unintended pregnancies
• undergo pregnancy and childbirth safely
• avoid sexually transmitted infections, including HIV
• combat violence against women
• promote the equality of women

All of these actions contribute to the human right to "reproductive health" — physical, mental and social well-being in all matters related to reproduction and the reproductive system.

The Fund raises awareness of these issues worldwide, advocates close attention to population trends and their incorporation into national development policies, and helps countries formulate policies and strategies in support of poverty eradication and sustainable development. The UNFPA works in partnership with other United Nations agencies, governments and communities. Since 2001, the Fund has been led by Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.

UNFPA's work is guided by the Programme of Action adopted by 179 governments at the landmark International Conference on Population and Development in 1994. It asserted that meeting people's needs for education and health, including reproductive health, is a prerequisite of sustainable development. UNFPA focuses on improving the lives and expanding the choices of individuals and couples. Over time, their reproductive choices, multiplied across communities and countries, affect population structures and trends. The main goals of the Programme of Action are:

• Universal access to reproductive health services, including family planning, by 2015
• Universal primary education and closing the gender gap in education by 2015
• Reducing maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015
• Reducing infant mortality
• Increasing life expectancy

These goals were refined in 1999. One of the most important additions was targets for reducing the spread of HIV, which had by then become a much more widespread problem:

• HIV infection rates in persons 15-24 years of age should be reduced by 25 percent in the most-affected countries by 2005
• They should be reduced by 25 percent globally by 2010.

Many of the same goals were incorporated into the Millennium Development Goals, which now guide international development priorities.

The Fund promotes a holistic approach to reproductive health care that includes access to a range of safe and affordable contraceptive methods and to sensitive counseling; prenatal care, attended deliveries, emergency obstetric care and post-natal care; and prevention of sexually transmitted infections by promoting safer sexual behavior. As mandated by the [[1]] Programme of Action, the aim of family planning programmes must be to enable couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children; to have the information and means to do so; to ensure informed choices; and to make available a full range of safe and effective methods.

As one of the co-sponsors of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNFPA joins other agencies in calling for universal access to prevention, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS, and advocates for linking such services with other aspects of reproductive health care.

The work of the agency is based its own mandate as well as on each country’s unique circumstances and needs, as articulated in the United Nations-wide Common Country Assessments. Areas of work include reproductive health, safe motherhood, supporting adolescence and youth, preventing HIV, promoting gender equality and securing the reproductive health supplies needed for these tasks. The Fund is committed to using human rights-based and culturally sensitive approaches in its programming.

The UNFPA supports programmes in four areas, the Arab States, Central Asia and Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. About three quarters of the staff work in the field.

Example projects

Campaign to End Fistula – This UNFPA-led global campaign works to prevent obstetric fistula, a devastating and socially isolating injury of childbirth, to treat women who live with the condition and help those who have been treated to return to their communities. The campaign works in more than 30 countries in Africa and South Asia.

Y-PEER (Youth Peer Education Network) – This umbrella organization, which was piloted by UNFPA to address the AIDS epidemic among young people, supports hundreds of peer education projects in more than 20 countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Arab States. By providing trainings, training manuals, an extensive website for sharing knowledge and experience, and many other resources, Y-PEER brings common standards of excellence to a wide variety of peer-to-peer efforts engaging many other partners.

Securing Essential Supplies UNFPA is the largest international public sector supplier of contraceptives, condoms and other reproductive health essentials. The Fund purchases nearly $80 to $100 million in goods and services each year for many partners in development. It helps countries develop their own systematic approach to securing the supply of these commodities.

Humanitarian Assistance – In the aftermath of crises -- including conflicts, earthquakes and tsunamis – UNFPA works to ensure that the specific needs of women are factored into the planning of all humanitarian assistance. UNFPA also addresses urgent reproductive health needs that are sometimes overlooked, including obstetric care, family planning and personal hygiene supplies, and psychosocial support services.

The State of World Population is the centrepiece of UNFPA’s worldwide media communications and advocacy efforts. Each year the report documents an issue related to the UNFPA mandate in depth and has frequently led to broader discussion of key issues. In 2006, a supplemental youth edition of the report was introduced.

Support for Census UNFPA plays a lead role in advocating and mobilizing support for census taking, which provides the data base so essential for development planning. In many countries, UNFPA helps develop capacity in technical aspects of the process, including cartography, data collection and processing and data analysis and dissemination. Many countries would have been unable to conduct censuses without the assistance provided by the Fund.

Criticism of the UNFPA

Pro-life groups and the Catholic Church claim that of "universal access to a comprehensive range of safe and reliable reproductive and sexual health care and services", as called for by the ICPD Programme of Action, includes abortion under the World Health Organization definition. However, ICPD, which guides the Fund, states that abortion should not be promoted as a method of family planning, and UNFPA says it does not provide support for abortions. It does provide follow-up care for women suffering from the consequences of unsafe abortions. In many countries where UNFPA has helped support family planning, abortions have decreased.

The UNFPA Executive Director stresses the need to broaden participation, respect cultural differences and overcome mistrust among partners.

UNFPA and the United States Government

The United States was one of the founders of UNFPA and continues to sit on the 36-member Executive Board that approves its programmes. In UNFPA’s early years, the United States contributed as much as half of the Fund’s budget. Over the last two decades, US funding has been intermittent. Since 2002, although the United States Congress appropriated some $34 million annually for UNFPA, the current Administration withheld these funds on the grounds that UNFPA supported Chinese government programs that include forced abortions and sterilizations. However, no human rights organization has ever linked UNFPA's programs in China to a single act of coercion; nor did an 2002 independent assessment under the supervision of Secretary of State Colin Powell. UNFPA says that it "does not provide support for abortion services". UNFPA’s charter includes a strong statement condemning coercion.

In response to the Bush Administration’s withholding of funds, two women organized the grass-roots 34 Million Friends drive to replace the public funds with private donations.

UNFPA and the European Union

The countries of Europe are among UNFPA’s strongest supporters, both politically and financially. Northern European countries represented five out of the six top donors to the Fund in 2006 . The European Union also provides substantial support, which, under the terms of the Sandbaek report, increased in 2003, after the United States denied funding.

External links

• Official homepage
• Campaign to End Fistula
• Americans for UNFPA
• AIDS Clock
• Ending Violence Against Women