UNITED KINGDOM: Foreign Aid Strategy Puts Focus On Safe Abortion and Contraception
The Guardian reported on 31 December that the coalition government will put contraception and safe abortion at the heart of its efforts to help save women's lives in poor countries. Two documents set out plans for international development, which has a ringfenced budget. One focuses on the fight against malaria, to which the chancellor, George Osborne, is personally committed. The other envisages increasing efforts to save the lives of women in childbirth and their babies. Funding in poor countries will double between 2010 and 2015 from the 2008 level, and then plateau. The UK will spend an average of £740m a year on women's and children's health, totaling £4.4b n, an extra £2.1bn more than previous commitments. Within this total, says DfID, there will be "significant" spending on reproductive health, with the aim of enabling 10 million more women "to choose whether, when and how many children to have". Details of how much money will go to agencies such as UNFPA, Marie Stopes and others will not be available until DfID's total spending review is completed early in 2011. Read: The Guardian