The lives of 250,000 mothers and children around the world could have been saved by UK funding, which has now been cut, the United Nations' sexual health and reproductive agency (UNFPA) has said.

The UK had initially committed to donate $216m to support UNFPA's global family planning projects this year, but has announced it will cut its aid by 85 percent because of the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the country's public finances.

The cut, which works out at $181m, has been described by the UNFPA as "devastating," stripping the agency of a contribution that "would have helped prevent around 250,000 maternal and child deaths, 14.6 million unintended pregnancies and 4.3 million unsafe abortions."

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The agency helps hundreds of thousands of women and families in the world's poorest nations access proper reproductive health care, seeking to reduce unsafe abortions and unintended pregnancies.

"The truth is that when funding stops, women and girls suffer, especially the poor, those living in remote, underserved communities and those living through humanitarian crises," the statement read.

Measures to support the UK economy during the pandemic have pushed Britain's annual borrowing to levels unmatched since World War II, and the UNFPA is only the latest agency to face the impact of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision, last November, to cut the country's spending target for overseas aid from 0.7 percent to 0.5 percent of national income.

The temporary measure, which UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described in November as a "matter of necessity" and a decision taken by the government "with regret."

In 2019, the then International Development Secretary Alok Sharma announced a program that would provide $836m between 2020 and 2025 and buy family planning supplies for millions more women and girls in the world's poorest countries each year.

At the time, he said: "The UK has been at the forefront of global efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls living in the world's poorest countries."

_{Cover image: AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos}