Reproductive Health: The Role of International Organizations

Several UN agencies are integral to promoting reproductive health, including contraception, safe motherhood, prenatal care and HIV prevention, and related efforts to advance the health and rights of women and all people. These agencies work in far more countries than, for example, the United States does through its bilateral programs. In addition, UN agencies are in for the long-haul with countries – they work with developing countries to deliver basic health care services regardless of national circumstances, which may include humanitarian emergencies or civil conflict.

For more than two decades, opponents of family planning and reproductive health have been attempting to taint the work of these agencies, in part because these organizations are hard pressed to defend themselves within the milieu of domestic politics in donor nations. Accordingly, opposition organizations have leveled various false charges against selected UN agencies that have constrained the life-saving work being done by these agencies around the world.

UNFPA – United Nations Population Fund

Central is the United Nations Population Fund – widely known by its acronym UNFPA – which was created in 1969 (with the support of then-UN Ambassador George H.W. Bush) and is now the largest internationally funded source of reproductive services to more than 140 countries. UNFPA provides birth control supplies and information, maternal and child health care, and STD and HIV/AIDS prevention services to adults and adolescents, including in humanitarian emergencies. UNFPA also lends its voice to global women’s issues and works to provide services and enhance opportunities for women and girls. Integral to UNFPA’s work are efforts to mobilize the resources and political will necessary to accomplish its areas of work.

American political forces have played football with UNFPA funding for the better part of 20 years. In the mid-1980s, UNFPA funding was initially withheld by the U.S., ostensibly over UNFPA’s efforts in China. Funding was restored during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. In his first year in office, President Bush funded UNFPA, but since 2002, the Bush Administration has blocked nearly $150 million Congress intended for UNFPA. The essential fault line related to UNFPA is its program in China. Despite a finding by its own blue ribbon panel of experts, which found no evidence that UNFPA participates in or supports a program of coercive abortion in China, the Bush Administration withdrew funding. UNFPA argues, and all other countries agree, that its presence in China helps to promote voluntarism in the Chinese family planning program – but opponents charge that simply because UNFPA is working in China the United States should not fund the organization.

The impact of US defunding of UNFPA: The loss of US funding seriously undermines UNFPA programs in the developing countries it serves. Since the law already prohibits US funds from being spent in China, the effects of UNFPA defunding are born by women in all the other countries in which UNFPA operates, including some of the poorest in the world. Each year the funds blocked could be used to prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies; nearly 800,000 induced abortions; 4,700 maternal deaths; nearly 60,000 cases of serious maternal illness; and over 77,000 infant and child deaths.

UNICEF

UNICEF’s primary mission consists of treating and preventing childhood illness and death, and therefore plays an instrumental role in promoting maternal health and reducing infant morality. The health of children is closely linked to that of their mothers, and addressing child health requires strengthened efforts in safe motherhood. UNICEF designs and implements programs that provide women with access to safer and improved prenatal care.

Over the past decade UNICEF has come under attack for adding children between the ages of 10 to 18 more prominently to its agenda. Arguing that adolescents do not have rights or that dealing with the full range of their health care needs is inappropriate, right-wing organizations have challenged whether UNICEF should be funded by the international community. However, with UNICEF’s mission being to promote health, education, equality and protection for every child (internationally defined as those less than 18), it has a responsibility to undertake these activities.

WHO – World Health Organization

Among the many other health issues on which it works, WHO provides assistance to educate communities about safe motherhood and the rights of women, training of midwives, expanding access to obstetric care, family planning, HIV prevention, ending violence against women and improved health and nutrition. WHO engages in extensive research, best practices recommendations, and policy advice for countries wishing to advance reproductive health. Its focus is integrative, seeking to bring together issues of economic development, conflict, and gender to influence a wide range of reproductive health priorities. Their recommendations are the prevailing guidance on RH in many countries. They are party to the Human Reproduction Programme at the UN, in conjunction with UNDP, UNFPA, and World Bank.

UNAIDS

Nine UN organizations and the World Bank collaborate on efforts to stem the HIV/AIDS pandemic through UNAIDS. As the main advocate for global action on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS leads, strengthens and supports an expanded response aimed at preventing the transmission of HIV, providing care and support for those living with the disease, reducing the vulnerability of individuals and communities to HIV/AIDS, and alleviating the impact of the epidemic. To focus on the particular needs of women and girls – who are now disproportionately affected by HIV – UNAIDS formed the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS educate and mobilize a response.

UNIFEM – United Nations Development Fund for Women

UNIFEM promotes the political and economic empowerment of women in developing countries by strengthening women's economic capacity as entrepreneurs and producers; engendering governance and leadership that increase women's participation in decision-making; and promoting women's human rights. Reproductive health services are assumed as a foundation for providing the rest of these. Some current initiatives include “Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives” to develop gender-focused guidance to nations for budget development, and “Gender Equality and the MDGs” to establish an understanding of gender equality as a bedrock element of achieving any of the MDGs. UNIFEM also manages a fund to support local efforts to combat violence against women, which is a major health and rights issue.