Foreign Aid Spending Signed Into Law – PAI Asks to "See the Check" for UNFPA

January 23, 2004

Washington, DC — Population Action International responded with guarded enthusiasm to the enactment of the FY 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which allocates $432 million for international family planning programs, and earmarks support for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

"We regret that this bill failed to overturn the Global Gag Rule, but are heartened by the contribution of $34 million for UNFPA," says Amy Coen, President of Population Action International. "This is a step in the right direction. Now, we'd like to see the check."

Under the Bush Administration, UNFPA has been denied congressionally-approved contributions for the past two years based on unsubstantiated charges by anti-family-planning activist groups that the Fund was complicit in human rights abuses in China. These claims have been consistently refuted by numerous high-level delegations that have visited China, and the Bush Administration's own fact-finding mission in 2002 found no evidence faulting UNFPA. Nonetheless, U.S. funds have been withheld from the UN agency.

To help prevent a repeat episode, language was included in the omnibus bill that prohibits further withholding of funds without a presidential determination explicitly stating how UNFPA is in violation of the long-standing Kemp-Kasten amendment.

"Unlike last year, President Bush won't be able to quietly defund UNFPA without fanfare," says Craig Lasher, senior policy analyst at Population Action International. "We hope the Administration will take a really serious look at the facts on the ground. If it does, we're confident that UNFPA will get the money that Congress has appropriated."

Summary of the final agreement:*

-$432 million in funding for family planning/reproductive health programs channeled through USAID for FY 04;

- A contribution of up to $34 million for UNFPA for FY04, and a requirement that the President issue a formal determination if he should decide to again withhold funding under the Kemp-Kasten amendment, used by the Bush Administration to defund UNFPA in July 2002 due to its presence in China;

- $59 million in combined FY03 and FY02 funds appropriated to UNFPA by Congress, but denied by the Bush administration, are to be transferred: $34 million will go to USAID for family planning in countries where it is needed; $25 million will be diverted to combat sex trafficking;

- $2.4 billion for HIV/AIDS programs, including $500 million for the Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Fund. The bill also contains potentially important statutory and report language that may mitigate the effect of some of the ideologically-driven legislative directives in HIV/AIDS authorization bill enacted in 2003. For example, the Omnibus bill requires grantees to offer complete and medically accurate information on condoms if they offer any advice about condoms at all.

Click here to see the full text of the bill.

* Funding levels cited do not reflect a 0.59 percent across-the-board cut enacted by Congress as part of the omnibus bill. For example, actual bilateral funding will be reduced from $432 to $429.5 million.