These organizations had been reeling under funds crunch since the ban and had to roll back many of its programs that impacted their work. [break]
Bina Mahat, manager of gender and advocacy section at Family Planning Association Nepal (FPAN) said that the liberal US policy means more fund to the institutions like hers that works on ensuring better health of women and children.
“It will now be easy to work in the field of sexual and reproductive health,” she told myrepublica.com. “Twenty-four percent of the total budget provided by International Planned Parenthood (IPP) was cut down after the ban, which is known as global gag rule.” According to her IPP is major donor of the association.
FPAN had to lay off more than 70 trained staffs due to a policy -- ban on abortion -- adopted by US in 2001.
George W. Bush the then US President reinstated the ban on federal funding for foreign family planning agencies that promote or give information about abortion. Several organizations in Nepal too were affected because that resulted in cut down of huge amount spent for the better health of women and children in the world.
Due to the ban, the FPAN also scrapped Sexual and Reproductive Health Project that worked on providing sexual and reproductive health education to adolescents and women. Since the organization advocated on abortion rights and provided the abortion services it could not reach any agreement with the American government in terms of getting support after the ban.
Similarly, USAID also stopped funding to abide by the then decision. “Now the new decision will allow us working with partners of USAID,” Mahat said. “We will also see resumption in the fund provided for contraceptives.”
The ban also known as Mexico City Policy mandated that no US family planning assistance could be provided to foreign NGOs that use funding from any other source to perform abortions in cases other than a threat to the woman’s life, rape or incest; provide counseling and referral for abortion; or lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their country.
Marie Stopes Nepal, a leading organization providing safe abortion services did not get support from Asia Foundation Fund due to which its regular sterilization program was hampered.
During late nineties when there was the continuation of the fund we used to carry out 10,000 sterilization, but it dropped to 6,000 when the ban was imposed, said Prabin Shakya, assistant director of Marie Stopes Nepal. The organization stopped getting USAID funded contraceptives after the ban was imposed in 2001.
“Nepal Family Health Program treated us differently and denied several opportunities related to the services,” Shakya said. “We believe this will now end.”
Ian McFarlane, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative, Nepal, said that the UNFPA has not received the $244 million in US funding in over the past seven years that it ought to have received. He said the fund could have been utilized in 154 member states of UNFPA including Nepal.
A statement posted on the official website of UNFPA after Obama’s decision reads: "Restoration of funding will allow us to maintain recent gains during the current financial crisis and provide support to women in some of the poorest countries in the world.”
By resuming funding to UNFPA, the US will be joining 180 other donor nations, working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries, the statement read.
sangeeta@myrepublica.com
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