UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, has learned that the United States Government will deny future funding to the organization, cutting essential support for millions of people living in humanitarian crises and for midwives preventing mothers from dying in childbirth.

The US is using the Kemp-Kasten Amendment to justify the funding cuts – a decision based on unfounded claims about UNFPA’s work in China that have long been disproved. The amendment states that no US funds may be made available to any organization that supports or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Multiple evaluations by the US Government itself and others have found no evidence that UNFPA engages in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China. 

The US had become one of UNFPA’s most critical partners, providing $180 million in funding on average a year.

The denial of future funding comes in addition to termination notices that UNFPA has already received for more than 40 humanitarian grants. The grants, totaling some $335 million, provided critical maternal healthcare, protection from violence, treatment for rape and other life-saving care in more than 20 countries and territories in crisis.

These cuts in funding will have a devastating impact on women and girls around the world. In Afghanistan, for instance, more than 9 million women will not receive maternal health and wider services. In the occupied Palestinian territory, the setup of crucial mobile obstetric units and safe spaces for women and girls, as well as supplies of medicines and post-partum kits, will be halted. 

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