Fighting for facts and funding: UNFPA’s new chief steps into the storm

When Diene Keita officially took over the leadership of the United Nations Population Fund in August, the agency was already reeling from U.S. funding cuts and misinformation about its work. The U.S. terminated funding for more than 40 of the agency’s humanitarian projects, and decided to withhold future funding to the agency based on unfounded and long-disproved claims of it being involved in coercive abortion in China. UNFPA had anticipated being defunded by the Trump administration — every Republican president has done so since Ronald Reagan — and had started mobilizing resources from other donors prior. But the cuts, amounting to nearly $336 million, were no less brutal. The organization also let go of around 100 of its 6,000 staffers, according to Keita. “It has had an immediate impact, especially on our lifesaving activities in countries like Afghanistan,” Keita told Devex in Bogotá, Colombia, where the seventh International Conference on Family Planning is taking place. Keita said one of her main priorities for the next four years is to mobilize more resources, including through partnerships with development finance institutions and the private sector. While much progress has been made on family planning, 257 million women who want to decide their own future still don’t have access to safe modern contraception. They include women in humanitarian crises or those forcibly displaced by conflict and disasters. Yet 70% of donor funding for family planning is at risk, with the U.S., its largest donor, already pulling the plug on its support. But crucial to the agency’s resource mobilization is educating the public about what UNFPA does and doesn’t do. Keita said what worries her most is the disinformation and misinformation surrounding the work they do, including in ensuring women have access to family planning products and services, and that young people have the information they need about their sexual and reproductive health and the right knowledge to make informed choices concerning their bodies. “If you can have access to the information only, you can protect yourself a little bit. Because where does gender-based violence start? Lack of information first … Everything is not linked to aggression. Sometimes it’s lack of information about how you should be behaving yourself and how you should be protecting yourself in some circumstances. So … access to information, for me, is very critical,” she said. But there’s a growing anti-gender movement in different parts of the world that frames gender equality, and the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, as threats to traditional family values. There is also pushback against comprehensive sexuality education, with conservative groups claiming it is promoting sexual activities among young people. “People need to understand [that] what we do is at the heart of people’s lives, is at the heart of families. Ensuring that young people or women can access family planning, can access sexual and reproductive health services is absolutely critical for their well-being. It’s critical for their body autonomy. Because then, when you solve that issue, you can go out and try to work. You can go out and avoid … nonintended pregnancy,” Keita said. “We are not trying to impact any position of the society. We’re just trying to help the countries, to help governments, to ensure that their population can access all those services that exist,” she added. Fundraising, a priority UNFPA’s work has long centered on preventing maternal deaths, filling the unmet need for family planning and ending gender-based violence. And that remains under the agency’s new strategic plan for 2026-2029, with an additional goal of ensuring countries can plan for and navigate changes in their population demographics. But that plan also faces several risks, including humanitarian emergencies and climate-related disasters that limit women’s access to services; pushback against sexual and reproductive health and rights, which at times is fueled by misinformation; and volatile donor funding. Keita said her priority is to aggressively mobilize more resources and cocreate with willing partners, whether it’s the private sector, foundations, or national governments. UNFPA has already started doing this, including with the African Development Bank and Bayer. Bayer has donated contraceptive products to UNFPA, but Keita said they’re also looking at other ways of working together to reach more women globally, including the potential use of virtual reality for the safe delivery of babies in hard-to-reach places. “What we are trying to do is see what is successful to [a partner] that can be a win-win for us. And the private sector … if they can make their money while being a philanthropist and saving lives, that’s where we go,” she said. Uncertainties on the horizon At the moment, Keita said UNFPA is in a good financial position — although the agency is expected to see a decline in its core resources, from $379.5 million in 2024 to $345 million in 2025. Core resources are unrestricted donor contributions. She is optimistic that they will be able to mobilize more resources. But there are also lots of uncertainties ahead. The World Health Organization expects global health aid to decline by 40%, and a new report by FP2030 found that 83% of donor government funding for family planning came from just five public donors — all of whom have already announced or proposed cuts to their foreign aid budgets. The U.N. is also in the midst of a reform effort, which includes a proposal to merge UNFPA and UN Women. Some groups working on family planning are concerned that a merger could dilute UNFPA’s work. But Keita said, “people shouldn’t be worried about that.” “I'm absolutely, personally not worried about that, because [the U.N.] secretary-general said it's not about the mandate, it's about how efficiently we implement those mandates,” she said. The merger isn’t a done deal yet — a review is being undertaken to assess its benefits. “I think the positive part [is] it will … give a better, clear view to the governments what they can ask of us and see the way we work all together,” Keita said. Adding that she does not see any cons at the moment. The threats to family planning and the broader work on sexual and reproductive health and rights could also expand. The global gag rule is a U.S. government policy prohibiting foreign nongovernmental organizations that receive U.S. funding from providing or advocating for abortion services. Recent reports suggest the Trump administration is planning to expand the policy by prohibiting entities that receive U.S. funding from promoting “gender ideology” or initiatives supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and that it would apply not just to foreign NGOs, but also to domestic NGOs and foreign governments. “I hope it will not happen,” Keita said. But if the U.S. decides to expand the rule, UNFPA will double down on explaining to countries what it does, she said. “I truly believe that if people knew what we do really, we won’t be talking about this,” Keita said. “Everything else is politics.”