| |
| author |
Sarah Silverberg
| | title |
How the United States Globally Influences Funding to UNFPA
| | abstract |
This thesis is designed to analyze the impact of the predictable yet volatile funding patterns of
the United States to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on the funding trends of other
donors. Historically under Republican presidential administrations, funding to this UN entity has
been cut to zero, restored once the Democratic administration returns to power. When the United
States is funding UNFPA, they are the largest contributor of funds, making their absence
noticeably detrimental to the overall budget of UNFPA. By looking to see how other countries
react to this funding pattern, it was interesting to observe which ones stepped in to try to fill the
gap that the United States leaves behind and which chose to follow the United States as a global
influence. Research was conducted through a combination of literature, statements from other
donor countries, and by analyzing the data trends reported by UNFPA. Overall contributions for
each year from 2014 to 2024 were mapped out to analyze the trends that other countries had
while the United States seesaws with their donations. Using these collected numbers, correlation
coefficients were run, both directly (year-to-year) and lagging (dependent country one year
behind the independent United States). The findings of this study indicated that many of the
other top donors to UNFPA tended to increase their funding to try to close the gap between the
United States' presence and its absence. In addition, there were two countries which did not alter
their funding patterns, and one which nearly matched the United States' pattern perfectly. The
concluding thoughts surrounding this thesis were that while the United States is a powerful
global influence, this does not necessarily mean that it influences other countries to act the same
way and can even cause other countries to directly oppose what the United States is doing.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2026)
|
| advisor |
Jennifer Olmsted
|
| full text | SSilverberg.pdf |
| |
