Sweden

Country Profile

The Swedish Government is politically dedicated to sexual and reproductive health and rights within development cooperation. Sweden is also one of the most committed donors of international development in general, with an ODA set on 31.2 billion SEK for 2013, which is 1% of the BNI.

Sweden has an international policy for SRHR (2006) that includes focus areas such as access to contraceptives and maternal health care services. Furthermore, in the Policy for Gender Equality (2010), the Swedish Government highlights SRHR, including reproductive health and contraceptives, as one out of three priorities.

Generally, the Foreign Ministry and Sida do not give any thematic budget lines to indicate spending, since the budget is organized geographically. However in the Swedish ODA budget for 2013, MDG4 and MDG5 is set out to be prioritized themes, although it remains to be seen if this also means an increased budget for family planning and reproductive health. The Swedish Minister for Development Cooperation is also part of the UN High Level Panel on the post-2015 agenda, in which the Minister has expressed a particular interest in recommendations around the health related MDGs and how to integrate gender equality and women´s empowerment, FP and RH into the next development framework.

Key Documents

• Global challenges – our responsibility, Communication on Sweden’s policy for global development
• Sweden’s international policy on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
• On Equal Footing Policy for Gender Equality and the Rights and Role of Women
• Dialogue for Change. Reference materials in support of policy dialouge on sexual and reproductive health and rights (2010)
• Overview sexual rights – brochure by Sida (2010)