GENEVA:
A United Nations Key Health Agency warned Tuesday that the Washington aid Cup could see 1,200 additional women die from pregnancy and causes related to birth in Afghanistan until 2028.
Shortly after its inauguration last month, Trump signed an executive decree implementing a 90-day break in help in the United States for foreign development.
Later, his administration has issued derogations from food and other humanitarian aid, but humanitarian workers say that the impact is already felt by some of the most vulnerable in the world.
In response, the Fund for the United Nations (UNFPA) “suspended the services financed by American subsidies which offer a lifeline to women and girls in crisis, including in South Asia,” said Pio Smith , regional director of the United Nations Sexual Health and Reproduction Agency for Asia and the Pacific.
“We are quite concerned about this substantial loss of funding,” he told journalists in Geneva.
He said that the situation was particularly dramatic in Afghanistan, where a mother already dies of avoidable complications of pregnancy every two hours, making him one of the deadliest countries in the world so that women can give birth.
For Afghanistan, “between 2025 and 2028, we estimate that the lack of American support will lead to 1,200 additional maternal deaths and 109,000 additional unwanted pregnancies,” said Smith.
“We have worked on understanding that, like the previous republican administrations … The agency would be funded,” said Smith, saying that efforts had been made to mitigate the risk.
But Smith said the agency did not expect the United States to interrupt the funds already attached to the UNFPA by the Giant Humanitarian Agency of the USAID, which it has now done. The order of judgment, he said, “is addressed to the funds that have already been attached to the agency, and what we see is that the programs that have focused on maternal health and reproductive and psychosocial support will be affected “.
Just in its region, Smith said that “UNFPA requires more than $ 308 million this year to support essential services in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan”.
