The Safe Abortion Action Fund (previously the Global Safe Abortion Fund) is a targeted reserve of resources to enable the implementation of programmes and initiatives to increase access to comprehensive safe abortion services, within a comprehensive package of reproductive health services, with particular regard for the needs of marginalized and vulnerable women.
The UK Government initiated the Safe Abortion Action Fund in February 2006 in response to a major new service and advocacy initiative for safe abortion developed by IPPF. The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) elected IPPF to administer the Safe Abortion Action Fund on behalf of civil society groups and non-governmental organizations worldwide to support a range of work on unsafe abortion.
Background
Each year, an estimated 19 million women and girls, faced with unintended or unwanted pregnancies, risk the deadly consequences of unsafe abortion. Nearly 70,000 of these women and girls will die, and hundreds of thousands of others will be left with debilitating and/or lifelong injuries as a result.
Over 96 per cent of these women will come from the world’s poorest nations. Out of the more than 500,000 annual maternal deaths, 13 per cent are due to complications from unsafe abortions, with the toll rising to as high as 50 per cent in some developing countries.
World leaders have expressed their commitment to women’s rights and maternal health; significantly, they reaffirmed their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, including the goal of reducing the number of maternal deaths and improving women’s health, during last September’s United Nations World Summit.
However, funding for work in this area is far behind projected estimates needed to make significant headway, and the Global Gag Rule – the US policy that denies reproductive health moneys to foreign non-governmental organisations that support, provide or refer for abortions – has resulted in substantial losses in funding for organizations working in sexual and reproductive health and rights.
This has meant that reproductive health services and work to prevent unsafe abortion has been cut back.
Purpose of the Safe Abortion Action Fund
The purpose of the Safe Abortion Action Fund is to attract, manage and disburse resources to non-governmental organizations working in any area along the abortion continuum.
This new fund will make a sustainable and significant contribution to the reduction of morbidity and mortality associated with unsafe abortions across the world and, more specifically, in developing countries where the burden is greatest and the need most dire.
The Fund will help ensure the successful achievement of the Millennium Development Goal on maternal health, including an internationally agreed target on reducing the number of maternal deaths in the world’s poorest countries by 2015.
Poverty Focus
The Safe Abortion Action Fund will support projects initiated by non-governmental organizations in a range of locations based on the need of the population, as such it is envisaged that a large proportion of these will be in the developing world. Priority will be given to applications from organizations working within poor communities where the need for improved services is the greatest.