Ensuring support for SRH/FP in EU development funding

The European Commission is currently preparing a proposal for its next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which will determine the EU’s annual spending from 2021 to 2027. 

Countdown 2030 Europe believes that the EU must include earmarked funding for SRHR, including family planning, through an explicit SRHR budget line or by designating SRHR as an objective under various budget lines (health, education, youth empowerment, human rights, gender).

Regardless of how SRHR will be tackled in terms of budget lines, the EU should have a specific commitment in terms of funding levels, in order to ensure that SRHR are consistently taken up every year throughout 2021-2027.

Countdown 2030 Europe together with DSW had a look at how much the EU spent on SRH and Family Planning over the past years. Click here to read more!

 Public sector funding for contraceptives.
Where do we go from here?

Looking at longer term trends, we can expect a funding gap for contraceptives of USD 290 million for the year 2020 if current trends in contraceptive use continue, but funding does not increase beyond current levels. If funding from donor and country governments does not increase dramatically in the coming years, most of this amount will have to be met through an increase in out-of-pocket expenditures by women and girls.

Moving forward an increase in public sector funding will be essential. C2030E will soon publish an analysis looking more closely at this issue.

Click here for more!

A look back at the European Development Days &
EU’s commitments to SRH/FP funding 

Countdown 2030 Europe co-hosted a panel discussion during the European Development Days entitled "No health without rights: women and girls decide".

This was also an opportunity for civil society representatives to call on the European Union to make a dedicated commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and family planning in the EU’s next multi-annual budget. 

The EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development made a powerful speech on the importance of SRHR, and the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights presented their new report, among other exciting topics.

See the highlight here!

Also check out our series of interviews on SRHR in emergencies with Lina Abirafeh, Director of the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University in Lebanon and Southern Champion. More here!