European

Institutions

The EU Institutions continuously commit to the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in major policies and international cooperation and development documents. Most recently, in October 2022, the European Commission adopted its Youth Action Plan (YAP), which will be the guiding policy framework to promote youth engagement and empowerment as part of the EU’s external action. The YAP specifically recognises SRHR as one of the key priority areas for youth empowerment, with a commitment to ‘’promote universal access to youth-friendly SRHR, with quality and affordable services and information, including comprehensive sexuality education, HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment, focusing on adolescent girls, marginalised and LGBTIQ young people’’.  

Strong commitments to SRHR are also included in the EU’s Gender Action Plan (GAP III), which provides the framework to promote gender equality through EU and EU Member States’ external action. The GAP III, adopted in November 2020, includes SRHR as one of the key thematic areas for the promotion of gender equality, with specific objectives and indicators. In addition, GAP III reaffirms the EU’s commitment to dedicate 85% of external cooperation projects to the promotion of gender equality as a principal or significant objective, with a new commitment for all EU Delegations in partner countries to implement at least one action with gender equality as principal objective.

The EU’s Multi-Annual Financial Framework (2021 – 2027) attributes 79.5 billion Euros to the ‘Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument /Global Europe (NDICI/GE), which is the main instrument for EU international cooperation. The NDICI/GE, adopted in 2021, and its legal basis includes specific references to SRHR as an important area to be funded, thereby providing a solid basis for the future implementation of EU programmes on SRHR. These commitments are also reflected in the programming of the funding: in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Multiannual Indicative Programmes (MIPs) of 21 countries include references to Sexual and Reproductive Rights. Other countries, might not have prioritised SRHR specifically, but include references to SRHR-related issues such as human development, Universal Health Coverage, gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE), and the fight against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

In addition to the inclusion of these commitments in the NDICI/GE and the important references to SRHR and related issues in the MIPs, the EU is stepping up its coordination with Member States and partner countries, by embracing a new “Team Europe” approach and implementing “Team Europe Initiatives” (TEIs). Starting as a reaction to COVID-19, TEIs are an enhanced tool to design and carry out international development policies and programmes, and they will play an important role in the programming and implementation of the new NDICI/GE. They envisage greater coordination between EU Institutions and Member States, to improve consistency and coherence of their external action. A TEI on SRHR in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on adolescent girls and young women, brings together the EC, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden and three African Regional Economic Communities: the East African Community (EAC), the West African Health Organization (WAHO) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Launched in the end of 2022, the TEI on SRHR aims amongst others to strengthen political commitments and capacities (joint education and health sector responses for SRHR outcomes), to strengthen regional mechanisms to address supply-side constraints and improve access to quality assured SRHR commodities, to strengthen advocacy and social accountability of regional commitments on SRHR (including data availability). 

Furthermore, with regards to access to vaccines, the EU jointly with Member States has set up the ‘COVAX Facility’, a global initiative bringing together governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines reach those most in need. Team Europe is investing over 3 billion to help secure 1.8 billion doses of vaccines for 92 low and middle-income countries.