GLOBAL UPDATES

PEPFAR Increases Commitment For Gender Based Responses. PEPFAR has committed $US 30 million to scale up gender-based violence prevention and response efforts in three countries. The announcement is a positive step in PEPFAR’s overall commitment to increase its focus on the unique risk factors faced by women and girls. This new scaled up multi-sector response promises to improve the lives of women and girls living in the focus countries, and will hopefully expand these gender based violence interventions in other countries in order to ensure more effective responses to the HIV epidemic worldwide.

To see the full PEPFAR Press Statement go to:PEPFAR

The International Day of the Midwife. The UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid and Secretary-General of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Agneta S. Bridges marked the International Day of the Midwife on 5 May. Each year, hundreds of thousands of women die and three million newborns do not survive the first week of life because they lack access to maternity health services and skilled midwifery care. For every tragic maternal death, another 20 women face serious or long-lasting illness or disabilities such as obstetric fistula. On the International Day of the Midwife, the International Confederation of Midwives and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, are calling on the governments of the world to urgently address The UNFPA and ICM point out that midwives can prevent up to 90% of maternal deaths where they are authorized to practice their competencies and play a full role during pregnancy, childbirth and after birth. They have a critical role in providing family planning, counselling, and preventing HIV transmission from mother to child. As the world gears up for the 10-year review of the Millennium Development Goals, both organizations will be campaigning to increase funding for goals 4, 5 and 6 to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and combat HIV and AIDS.

Source:UNFPA.

European Commission presents Draft Budget 2011 – 65 Million EUR for Millennium Development Goals.In his presentation to the Budget Committee of the European Parliament (EP), EU Commissioner for financial programming and budget, Janusz Lewandowski, outlined the main points of the EU draft budget 2011. A major commitment of new aid allocations was made under the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI), where an additional amount of 65 million EUR is to reinforce the EU pledge at the UN summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The two arms of the EU’s budgetary authority, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, are expected to adopt their positions on the Commission’s proposal on the draft budget in June and October respectively.

For more information, visit here for Commissioner Lewandowski’s presentation:European Commission.

EU-US re-launches their dialogue on development. After an inactive 12-year period, the EU-US development dialogue which outlines cooperation between the world’s two largest donors of aid was re-launched in Washington by Development Commissioner Piebalgs and USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah. Three areas of action have been identified: food security, climate change and the Millennium Development Goals. During the meeting, the EU and the US agreed on three roadmaps for cooperation in the next two years including the ‘Roadmap on the Millennium Development Goals in 2010-2011’. This roadmap states that there should be ‘coordination and collaboration on respective Gender Equality policy and action plans, since maintaining and even accelerating progress in gender equality and women's empowerment remains essential to the overall MDG effort.’.

More :European Commission.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report to be voted on in the European Parliament (EP) Development Committee (DEVE).The report entitled ‘Progress towards the achievement of the MDGs: midterm review in preparation of the UN high-level meeting in September 2010’ includes a specific section on priority MDG targets, notably for the health MDGs. The EP DEVE Committee will vote on the report and the text will be sent to the Plenary for a final vote on 15 June. The report calls on ‘all Member States and the Commission to reverse the worrying decline in funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights in developing countries and to support policies on family planning, abortion, treatment of sexual diseases and provision of condoms’.

The report can be retrieved at:European Parliament.

Human Rights in the EU.The latest Human Rights Report was presented to foreign affairs ministers on 10 May by Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and chair of the Foreign Affairs Council. The report gives an overview of the wide range of EU activities to promote human rights worldwide, covering the period from July 2008 to December 2009. Human rights, democracy and the rule of law are core values of the European Union. Not only are they part of the EU's identity, but the Union also has a vocation to bring them to its external relations. The report covers thematic issues, such as freedom of thought and human rights of women, as well as the Union's action on human rights in various countries. For example, during the report period, the EU provided over € 235 million in funding for 900 projects of non-governmental organisations in some 100 countries. It also spoke out for the protection of human rights at the United Nations and other international fora, and increased the number of human rights dialogues it conducts with non-EU countries. At present, the EU's agreements with more than 120 countries include a human rights clause, which gives the possibility of re-examining the agreement in the event of serious breaches of human rights.

For further information go to:The European Council.

New World Bank Reproductive Action Plan: More Condoms, Contraceptives, Midwives, and Educated Girls Could Prevent Most Maternal Deaths.The World Bank released a new five-year plan to help poor countries reduce their high fertility rates and prevent the widespread deaths of their mothers and children. In endorsing its Reproductive Health Action Plan 2010-2015, the Bank warned that family planning and other reproductive health programs that are vital to poor women had fallen off the development radars of many low-income countries, donor governments, and aid agencies. With 2010 marking the start of the five-year countdown to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many countries are far from achieving MDG 5, which calls for a drop in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015—equivalent to an annual decrease of about 5.5 percent—and increased access to universal reproductive health care by 2015. Against this target, the current global average rate of reduction is under 1 percent—only 0.1 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, where levels of mortality are the highest—and at the present rate of progress, the world will fall well short of achieving this MDG.Under its new health action plan, the Bank will help 58 countries with high maternal death and fertility rates, which have remained stubbornly high for some years, improve their reproductive health systems by stressing the following points: More Contraception―More Frequent Antenatal Visits―Spread Preventive Knowledge―Train New Health Workers.

For further information visit:World Bank.

Ivan Šimonovic appointed ASG in UN Human Rights Office in New York.The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Monday announced the appointment by Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon of Ivan Šimonovic as Assistant Secretary-General to head the High Commissioner’s New York office. He is the first person to hold the new post, which was approved by the General Assembly in December 2009.Mr. Šimonovic has extensive experience in the fields of international development, human rights, peace building and development of national institutions, which he has addressed at the political and academic levels. Mr. Šimonovic has been Minister of Justice of the Republic of Croatia since 2008, after previously serving as Assistant Minister and Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was the Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York for six years, and served as the Senior Vice-President and President of ECOSOC from 2001 to 2003. Throughout his twenty-year career, he has actively engaged in various human-rights-related activities both as a legal expert as well as a diplomat.

Source:UN.