Seminar on European Development Policies, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Supplies

On 3 October 2006, a Seminar on Health, Education, Reproductive Health Supplies and the European Development Policies took place in the Palais des Académies in Brussels, Belgium. The Seminar was the culmination of a series of activities organised by WPF and its partners and the European Parliamentary Network on Population and Development working together in the campaign Countdown 2015. The goal of the Countdown 2015 campaign is to see the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action, which would be an enormous contribution to the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals.

The Seminar featured two expert panels on European development policies and reproductive health. MEP Anne Van Lancker (Belgium), Chair of the EPWG and member of the EPF executive committee, challenged the EU to do more to ensure vulnerable populations would not be left out of future decision-making on development. Representing the area of Social and Human Development within the European Commission Directorate for Development, Lieve Fransen (Head) and Lena Sund spoke about changes in the Commission’s framework for development and the importance of communication between Brussels and the EU member states. Mari Simonen, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA announced the launching of their Global Programme for Commodities Security and John Skibiak, Director of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition spoke about reproductive health commodities and the importance of global coordination. Gill Greer, newly-appointed Director General of IPPF closed the Seminar with a statement that called attention to the ultimate goal of all these activities: improvements in the lives of people.

The highlight of the seminar was the presentation of a Call to Action signed by 125 Parliamentarians that urged the governments of the EU member states and the European Commission to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to achieve the goals of the MDGs. The Call to Action was presented to MPs from Finland and Portugal, the countries that are the present and next holders of the EU presidency. The Call to Action will be delivered to the Finnish Prime Minister and will be taken up in Portugal when their presidential term begins.

Background
Europe is now the world’s largest contributor to ODA, providing 52% of global ODA ($ 43.264 billion) in 2004. Following recent EU commitments to increase aid, the OECD estimates that European ODA will increase to $81 billion by 2010, at which point it could comprise 63% of the world’s total.

While the ODA commitments are encouraging, recent developments at EU level highlight the importance of continued vigilance in relation to delivering on these ODA Commitments and ensuring that sexual and reproductive health and rights also see increased funding levels in line with overall ODA increases. What is clear now is that the EU Member States have already agreed how much of their ODA funds will go to the EU Institutions in Brussels and that this amount does not represent any significant increases over current EC ODA levels. Therefore, if the EU (meaning the Brussels Institutions and the Member States) is to meet its commitments, the increased funding levels will have to come from Member States or new financing mechanisms (eg. the Tobin Tax). Moreover, over the past few months, Brussels based NGOs (including IPPF EN, MSI, DSW, AIDS organisations and UNFPA) as well as ourselves and MEPs in the EPWG have all fought to ensure that existing earmarked funding for SRHR remains.

With this in mind, WPF and other partners re-grouped under the banner of “Countdown 2015-Europe” have decided to mobilise parliamentary and civil society support for greater attention to SRHR in the EU’s development policy and what this means for the medium-term.

This includes:
1. A Parliamentary Call to Action (see above)
2. A seminar on “European Development Policies, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Supplies” - 3 October 2006, Brussels.
3. A Civil Society Call to Action. (You can sign the Call of Action there).