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UNFPA official warns U.S. funding cuts will force closure of hundreds of Afghan health sites
Summary
Andrew Saberton, deputy executive director for management at the United Nations Population Fund, said U.S. cuts to UNFPA funding will force closures of many community health facilities in Afghanistan and reduce midwife support by roughly half, putting reproductive and psychosocial services for millions at risk.
Andrew Saberton, deputy executive director for management at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told a United Nations briefing that recent U.S. funding cuts to UNFPA programs will force the agency to close hundreds of community health sites in Afghanistan and sharply reduce midwife support.
Saberton said UNFPA aims to reach 7,300,000 people in Afghanistan this year — about 80 percent of them women and girls — with reproductive health and psychosocial services. “Funding cuts in Afghanistan will result in lives lost,” he said. “There are no birth plans in Afghanistan, only survival plans.”
The UNFPA official described services he visited on a recent mission: a 24/7 basic health center and a transit emergency maternity clinic at the Torkham border with Pakistan; a family health “house” in Bamyan Province where locally trained midwives provide maternal care and make community visits; and a…
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