SUNS4370 Tuesday 9 February 1999

Population: US, Japan renege on funding pledges

United Nations, Feb 5 (IPS/Thalif Deen) -- The United States and Japan, the world's two major aid donors, have reneged on their commitments to fund a global plan of action on reproductive health adopted at the 1994
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo.

The 20-year plan, approved by 180 nations was to cost $17 billion, with western donors providing $5.7 billion and the balance of $11.3 billion coming from developing countries.
But five years after ICPD, only $1.4 billion have been committed by the western donors. Of the $4.3 billion shortfall, the United States and Japan account for $2.4 billion.

"The United States needs to recognise and take on its fair share of the burden," says Shanti Conly of the Washington-based Population Action International (PAI).

"Most Americans look only at what we give in absolute terms, but in fact, the U.S. allocates just $84 in population assistance for every million dollars of gross national product (GNP), compared to Denmark's
$371 per million GNP," she said.

The Cairo Plan of Action called for universal access to comprehensive reproductive and sexual health care, including family planning by 2015. Among the other goals were universal primary education, gender equality
and empowerment of women, and sharp reductions in infant, child and maternal mortality.

In a new report titled "Paying their Fair Share? Donor Countries and International Population Assistance," PAI says that while donor funding has fallen short of the targets, developing countries continue to pay the lion's share of the overall costs.

The report has been released in advance of a meeting in the Hague which will review the successes and failures of the ICPD plan of action. The Hague Forum, organised by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and hosted by the Netherlands government, will take place Feb 8 to 12. The review will lead upto "ICPD-Plus Five": a high-level special session of the UN General Assembly in New York in June.

The PAI study examines the commitment of donor nations to paying their "fair share" of the cost - a concept based upon each nation contributing according to its wealth, as measured by GNP. According to this yardstick, Norway and Denmark lead the way with the highest overall scores, followed by Sweden and the Netherlands. The worst grades have gone to France, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy. The U.S. and Japan fall in between the two categories.

Conly said the concept of burden or responsibility-sharing , which Europeans understand very well, is less well understood in the world's two largest economies.

"Advocacy efforts have clearly not been as successful as they cold be in reinforcing this message as well as helping the Americans and Japanese understand the implications of rapid population growth and poor reproductive health for the global economy and environment, and world peace and stability," she said.

The study points out that the declining share of donor wealth allocated for aid to developing countries is a major obstacle to increasing levels of population assistance.

Official Development Assistance (ODA), which reached a peak of 63 billion dollars in 1992, has been declining over the years: $58.9 billion in 1995, $55.1 billion in 1996 and $47.6 billion in 1997. The 1997 figure represent just 0.22% of their aggregate GNP, far below the 0.7% goal adopted by the United Nations in 1970.

Conly admits that the overall ODA picture is not a positive one - and undoubtedly, this affects the availability of resources for population programmes.

On the other hand, she says, population assistance trends have been better than those for overall ODA in recent years - perhaps because donors are motivated by the proven effectiveness of such assistance.

"While no one can be confident the gap can be closed," she said, "Perhaps there could at least be movement in the right direction." Conly argues that some donors could increase population assistance significantly through relatively small percentage shifts in their aid budgets.

Japan, which allocated only one percent of ODA to population assistance, falls in this category, and so do France and Italy, which allocated only two-tenths of one percent of their large aid budgets.

"It will be more difficult for the U.S. to increase population assistance levels significantly without an increase overall ODA, since it already allocates seven percent of ODA to population activities,"
Conly said.

She noted that in the U.S., opposition to international family planning from a small but vocal minority of the radical religious rights in Congress has stymied the administration's efforts.

Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangaldesh, who will chair the main committee at the Hague Forum, regretted the decline in both ODA and population funding.

Chowdhury said that donor nations should realise that population problems in one country ultimately go beyond one's borders. "It is very important for us to renew our committments to the Cairo plan of action
and ensure its full implementation," he said.

The current situation, he said, warrants a strong alliance of civil society, private sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Such an alliance, he said, can exert considerable political pressure on donor nations.

Chowdhury cited the successful population programmes in his own country and its close adherence to the goals set by the ICPD. A country with a population of about 125 million people, Bangladesh has a population
growth rate of 2.4% and an economic growth rate of 5.5% annually.

"Our target is to achieve a 2.0% population growth rate - and we are confident of achieving it," he added.