Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Barbara H. Seligman, MA, International Health Area, Abt Associates, 6320 Mori St., McLean, VA 22101, Susan Cohen, Guttmacher Institute, 1301 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036, 202-296-4012, scohen@guttmacher.org, and Duff Gillespie, Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health Leadership, John's Hopkins University School of Public Health, 0000, Baltimore, MD 00000.

President Bush's 2007 budget request departed from past requests in dropping the requested level for international family planning and reproductive health from the Child Survival and Health Program Fund Account from $346 million in FY2006 to $294 million. This drop occurs after four years of requests by the Bush administration at the $346 million level from this account and a requested total funding level from all accounts of $425 million (no total level is indicated for fp/rh in the FY2007 request). In policy statements at United Nations meetings, the Administration has made frequent references to its generous support for international family planning, reproductive and maternal health. Thus the substantial drop in the level of the FY2007 request, the first made under Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, raises the question of whither financial support for international fp/rh during the second term of the Bush Administration and beyond?

This paper will approach this question by looking at a set of factors that have contributed to the steadily declining priority – despite relatively constant funding -- attached to fp/rh assistance in the United States' global health assistance program with a focus on the post-1994/Cairo period. The factors include: changing demographics; the pace of new technological developments; changes in administration; and competing priorities.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant will be able to

• Identify key factors affecting international family planning assistance.
• Understand ways in which family planning assistance is affected differently from other categories of global health assistance.
• Understand how US global health assistance and especially reproductive health assistance differs from that of other donors.

Keywords: Family Planning, International Reproductive Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No