While evidence shows that global progress over the past ten years has been relatively good for the goals on poverty, HIV/AIDS, malaria, education and gender, many countries are still off-track on some MDG5 and regional trends indicate that Sub-Saharan African countries in particular lag much behind other regions.

The European Union is allocating €700 million to proposals by those countries which aim at accelerating progress on the most off-track MDGs: eradicating hunger, improving maternal health, curbing child mortality and improving access to water and sanitation. All selected proposals are results-oriented, with clear and measurable indicators to demonstrate the benefits of additional funding. The remaining €300 million will be provided as a reward to well-performing countries as part of the 10th EDF Mid-term Reviews.

Please find the official Commission communication with a  table presenting  the indicative allocations and the targeted MDGs for each of the selected proposals at: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/930 

Most relevant in the context of Reproductive health and family planning is the Regulation establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation (€23,295 million Euro) and more specifically the programme on global public goods and challenges.

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/how/finance/documents/prop_reg_instrument_dev_coop_en.pdf

Herewith the Minister wants to make the case that SRHR is a priority for the Dutch government in development cooperation, as was announced earlier. The fact that SRHR is a priority for the Dutch government was put into question by Rutgers WPF, its Alliance partners and the Dutch Parliament when the budget for 2012 became public in September.  The extra investments in 3 other priority areas for Dutch development cooperation, to know (1) food security and economic development, (2) water, (3) peace and security, were crystal clear in the proposed 2012 budget.  However the budget line of which SRHR is part of -the SRHR, HIV/AIDS and health budget line- was cut with 35 million due to the economic crisis.

Rutgers WPF and its SRHR Alliance partners analysed the budget and mobilised the general public and the Dutch parliament. Parliamentarians of both the coalition as well as the opposition filed amendments to restore the budget during the following budget discussions in the Dutch parliament. Minister Knapen reacted positively and explained his intentions for reparation in a letter. Contributions for GAVI and the Global Fund for 2012 will be paid this year, leaving budgetary space for an amount of 35 million in the budget for 2012. Hence the programme as was developed before the budget cut can be executed in 2012. In addition Knapen is willing to add an extra 8 million to the budget line for SRHR as a consequence of one of the amendments.

The vote on these amendments is 21-22 of December. Since almost all parties in the parliament are supportive of SRHR probably the passing of the 8 million amendment will not pose much problems.

Around a glass of wine and snacks, key experts from the Global South provided representatives from the European Parliament, European Commission, UN and European civil society with first-hand testimonies on the importance of reducing the Unmet Need for Family Planning in the fight against poverty.

 After a brief introduction to the concept of the unmet need for Family Planning and the Countdown 2015 consortium by Yvonne Bogaerts (Rutgers WPF), three global south advocates took the floor and presented on different topics.

Through her experiences as a professional working in India,  Ms. Sarita Barpanda indicated the issues related to the accessibility of Family planning. She explained that there is a need of quality products and services and that people need to have access to a mix of methods, stating that the high levels of sterilisation in India are resulting from a lack of access to other products. According to Ms. Barpanda, to address the issue of unmet need for Family planning we would need comprehensive sex education and quality supplies and services. She asked the EU to support this, also in the new multi-annual financial framework.

Mr. Holo Hochanda outlined the role of civil society in holding governments accountable and providing services to those populations that are difficult to reach for government. After sharing some experiences from Zambia, he called on the European institutions not only to focus on bilateral support but also to ensure that civil society can continue to contribute to eliminating the Unmet need for family planning.

Mr. Bryant Gonzales made a compelling case for youth friendly services, explaining that young people’s access to reproductive health is hampered by many barriers including stigma, judgmental service providers etc… He indicated that there is a clear need for European support to ensure that the largest ever group of young people in history can access the services they need.

After these introductory statements a discussion with all participants took place. Ms. Esperanza Delgado (Mexico) stressed the need for civil society to act as a watchdog especially in areas were health is decentralized. Nana Amma Oforiwaa Sam (Ghana) elaborated on the necessity of linking HIV/Aids with Family planning. Later many useful exchanges took place with professionals working on the field as well as advocates from across Europe and several follow up points, especially in light of the upcoming Multi annual financial framework discussions were identified.

The Popular Party (PP) has obtained 44.59% of the votes, which will entitle them to 186 seats at the Parliament (compared to 132 seats obtained in 2008 general elections) and the Socialist party has only obtained 28.59% of the votes, a loss of 59 seats in comparison to the 2008 elections.

Here below few trends and steps we can expect from this change in government:

1. Regarding ODA: Although the 0.7 GNP to ODA target is mentioned as a goal, the new party in power does not mean to maintain 2015 as the target date. The PP considers that 0.7% of GDP target for development cooperation is a goal for “very developed societies”.

2. The private-public partnerships appear strongly throughout the introducing document as something they want to reinforce.

-The funds assigned to development do not have to necessarily come from public sources.

-The PP will promote the private-public partnerships, and will call on the participation and funding of individuals (for this, they will facilitate a legal framework that allow individual contributions to development cooperation).

-Further to this, PP will encourage company’s social corporate responsibility.

3. Multilaterals: The PP will “promote the downsizing of the multilateral aid architecture, to fight the growth in the number of organisations that eat up resources needed to fight poverty” and   “promote the coordination among various international organisations at country level”.

4. Priorities: The PP will promote the need to include “credible answers in the agenda of International Organisations, the G-20, development cooperation, the fight against hunger, poverty, provision of humanitarian aid to the ones most in need, in the defence of human rights, climate change, international peace missions, in the defence of democracy and the strengthening of the Rule of law and on our own security”. They will “promote our national NGOs (our companies, the interest of our citizens) to influence world politics and globalisation processes our own way”.

5. Aid effectiveness: PP supports this agenda and put a strong emphasis on managing for results and evaluation (“we want an efficient and well-managed aid  that can be evaluated and be more operational”) but PP does not talk about the mobilisation of predictable, additional resources for development work.

6. Gender: PP’s policy to support women will be a crosscutting priority. The party also states in its  programme “We will promote women’s access to education and health and we will protect her  freedom and dignity”. There is no specific reference to SRHR which was one of the priorities of the previous Government.

DFID’s press release is available at: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/News/Latest-news/2011/contraception-drive-will-save-womens-lives/

The Plan sets out how Ireland will promote the objectives of Resolution 1325, which calls for an increase in the participation of women in peace processes, the protection of women and girls in armed conflict, and recognition of the link between conflict and gender-based violence.  Ireland joins an increasing number of countries choosing to launch national plans in relation to implementation of Resolution 1325, including the UK, Norway and the Netherlands.

One of the actions outlined in the Monitoring Framework for the Action Plan is “Support the capacity building of partners on developing and implementing Gender based violence (GBV) programming, including adopting and implementing in their programme accepted guidelines on preventing and responding to GBV and sexual exploitation and assault (SEA) and addressing women’s sexual and reproductive health”. The indicator for this action is “all relevant organisations, including CSOs, supported by the Irish state have guidelines and policies in place on preventing and responding effectively to GBV and SEA and addressing sexual and reproductive health. The target timeframe for this indicator is 2013.

The Action Plan also includes a strong focus on women’s human rights and on women’s effective participation at all levels of decision-making, including relief/camp management and local and national level decision-making. The collection of disaggregated data and other gender mainstreaming strategies are also highlighted in the Action Plan.

In an opinion piece in the Irish Times of October 31^st entitled Reproductive Healthcare a GlobaI Issue, Minister of State for Development and Trade, Ms Jan O’Sullivan, TD,  stated that, “Providing women with access to reproductive healthcare – family planning services and healthcare during pregnancy and birth – is not just an end in itself. It also has a transformative effect on women’s vulnerability to poverty, hunger and economic and social discrimination”.

The Minister, who made similar remarks at the launch of the 2011 State of World’s Population Report, went on to say, “The international community has made real progress on many important development goals in the last 10 years; school enrolment and child health have improved, child deaths have been reduced and access to clean water and sanitation has been expanded. We need to replicate this progress in the area of reproductive health. Ireland is committed to doing everything we can to support this aim. It is imperative that we do so – not just for the women and girls in the developing world that deserve our help and support, but in the interests of creating a more sustainable planet for all of us.”

The full text of the opinion piece is available here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1031/1224306805795.html

The discussions tackled the topic of Family Planning on several occasions. Two MPs – Danielle Bousquet and Philippe Tourtelier – in particular insisted on the fact that gender is a key approach to make substantial progress on Reproductive Health and Family Planning issues. The category of young adolescent girls, in this perspective, is an essential one to take into account.

The full transcription of the debate can be found here.