Kathmandu, March 9

Access to reproductive and sexual health care services is essential for promoting the well-being of Nepali women, men and their children, but a new report published by CREHPA and IWHC shows that the US government’s expanded version of the Mexico City Policy also known as ‘Global Gag Rule’ has damaging effects on women’s health, Nepali health sector and civil society.

“Though the negative impacts of the Global Gag Rule are still unfolding, there is no doubt that the policy undermines sexual and reproductive health and rights and reverses the progress Nepal has made on improving women’s health,” said Associate Director of CREHPA Mahesh Puri.

“Early impacts include a loss of US government funding, the cessation of US funded health programmes and projects and weakening of civil society partnerships, collaboration and voices,” he said.

After the reinstatement and expansion of the Global Gag Rule in 2017, Nepali non-governmental organisations that receive US global health assistance now need to certify that they do not provide, counsel, refer or advocate for abortion as a method of family planning—even with their own funds, as a condition to continue to receive funding. Since the new policy applies to all global health funds, which means losing grants for programmes targeting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, and water and sanitation and hygiene.

As a result, many national and international organisations working in reproductive and sexual health services, including abortion are experiencing the negative impacts of Global Gag Rule on their programmes and services.

“Since the expanded policy applies to sectors beyond family planning, many organisations have been compelled either to choose to meet the conditions under the policy or sacrifice US government funding,” said programme officer for learning, monitoring, and evaluation at IWHC, adding that the policy had already started curtailing efforts to expand health services and sustain progress towards making healthcare accessible in Nepal.

The report also shows that the implementation of the expanded Global Gag rule is creating gaps in sexual and reproductive health service availability and utilisation, which affects already marginalised and under-served populations. The US government funding cuts has affected sexual and reproductive health and rights programme activities like supply of equipment and service demand-generating activities, ultimately leading to low or no utilization of the US funded programmes.

This policy also creates funding gaps and halting implementation of Us funded programmes.

Three organisations receiving United States government funding for family planning projects were forced to end the projects before the scheduled completion date due to cutbacks related to the Global Gag rule. These organisations have been working for the promotion of family planning and safe abortion for years and were impact because they refused to sign the policy.

One of the organisations working in the field of sexual and reproductive health rights stated that it had scaled down its programmes. It has stopped outreach service in 11 districts.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Population Upendra Yadav shared that the budget allocated by the government for the health sector was very less. “We cannot ensure the reproductive and sexual health rights of women unless we have enough budget,” he added.