IPPF, the secretariat for the Safe Abortion Action Fund, would like to update the sexual and reproductive health community on the latest developments of SAAF.

We offer our apologies for not providing better communications about SAAF in the last couple of months and we will strive to provide regular updates in future.

As you may recall from announcements about this Fund in 2006, the Safe Abortion Action 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 Fund aims to help ensure that internationally agreed upon targets to reduce the number of maternal deaths in the world’s poorest countries are achieved by 2015.

IPPF administers SAAF on behalf of civil society groups and non-governmental organizations worldwide.

The original $5.6 million that the UK government pledged to the Safe Abortion Action Fund has been augmented by other donors since it was announced in February 2006.

The governments of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have committed their support to SAAF, bringing the Fund’s total resources to $14.87 million over two years.

The Safe Abortion Action Fund call for proposals went out in July 2006 with a deadline of 30 October 2006, and brought in an astounding 165 proposals with requests for funding totalling over $41 million!

This overwhelming response makes clear the great need for funds to support work for safe abortion services and initiatives around the world.

We received nearly 50 proposals from each of the Africa and South Asia regions (including 31 from India), 51 from the Western Hemisphere Region, 14 each from the Europe and East and South East Asia and Oceania Regions, and one from the Arab World.[1]

By Development Assistance Committee (DAC) category, 60 per cent of proposals came from the two lower income category brackets - ‘Least developed countries and territories’ and ‘Other low income countries’- while the remaining 40 per cent came from the two higher level DAC countries - ‘Lower middle income countries’ and ‘Upper middle income countries’.

The largest number of proposals – 69 – came from ‘Other low income countries’.

Proposals focus on one or more of three focus areas – advocacy, operations research and service delivery – and represent grassroots organizations as well as country offices of larger NGOs working at the country level.

The first SAAF Board meeting took place in London on 10 and 11 January 2007 and was attended by all Board members: