New York  - The United Nations on Tuesday welcomed US President Barack Obama's decision to lift a ban on funding for international family planning groups that perform abortions and related counselling services.

Thoraya Obaid, director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) praised Obama's decision, which reversed years of policies held by Republican governments, starting with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and pursued by George W Bush in the past eight years.

Thoraya said US funding, whenever Congress would decide to release it, would go towards ensuring birth attendance, emergencies in obstetric care and family planning in the world's poorest countries.

She said 64 per cent of UNFPA's annual budget of more than 500 million dollars have been spent in the world's least developed countries.

Administrations under Republican presidents withheld contributions to UNFPA of between 40 to 50 million dollars, charging that US taxpayer money could have been used to support abortion programmes in some countries, particularly China, the world's most populous nation.

Thoraya praised Obama's "strong leadership" in ending the Republican opposition to family planning programmes carried out by non-governmental organizations and UN agencies. UNFPA had denied it supported abortions in poor countries.

"If a woman cannot make decision about her own fertility, then she cannot make decisions about anything else," Thoraya said. dpa