Brussels, November 8, 2022

On November 8, Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung (DSW) and the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) jointly launched the 2022 Donors Delivering for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Report at an event in the European Parliament.

The report tracks and assesses support of OECD DAC donors to SRHR, family planning (FP), and reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) in their development cooperation with low- and middle-income countries. 

The 2022 Donors Delivering Report looks at the data of the first full year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the most recent available official ODA data is from 2020. The UN estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic erased more than four years of progress against poverty, disrupted essential health services and intensified violence against women and girls. While the disruptions and lockdowns of the pandemic seem to have had less of an impact on women’s SRH than initially expected, further research is necessary.

Against this backdrop, in 2020, after a decrease in 2019, donors’ SRHR funding was back to the level of 2018. This was mainly due to several large donors increasing the total amount of their SRHR disbursements, including the US, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the EU Institutions. However, looking at the numbers in detail, it is clear that large donors, including Germany, France, and the EU Institutions, are not prioritising SRHR funding in their Official Development Assistance, all dedicating less than 2% of ODA to SRHR. Out of thirty donors, only five spent more than 4% of ODA on SRHR.

This confirms a tendency of recent years of large donors failing to prioritise SRHR funding in their ODA, meaning that many countries who contribute the highest amount of SRHR funding in real terms only allocate a comparatively small percentage of their ODA to supporting SRHR. Accordingly, some of the leading donors in real terms lag behind smaller donors such as Iceland and the Netherlands when it comes to prioritising SRHR.

During the launch event of the 2022 Donors Delivering report, hosted by MEP Maria Noichl at the European Parliament, EPF Secretary Neil Datta stated that ‘one crucial way to ensure that everyone, in particular women and girls, are able to enjoy their sexual and reproductive rights is for donor countries to play their part and support SRHR through their ODA.’

Support for SRHR in policies is not always met with an adequate commitment when it comes to budget. ‘At EU level, we see a disconnect between policy – like the commitments to SRHR included in the GAP III, NDICI – Global Europe, the recently adopted Youth Action Plan – and actual funding towards SRHR’, said Steffie Neyens, a DSW Advocacy Officer. 

While jointly the largest ODA donors (accounting for more than 50% of all ODA), the EU Institutions and EU Member States taken together account for only 25.12% of all donors’ SRHR disbursements in 2020. In particular, in comparison to the high SRHR disbursements by the US, both in absolute and in relative terms (more than half of all SRHR disbursements came from the US), the EU is far from being an SRHR champion. The setbacks to the global SRHR agenda experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and the expected consequences of current food and energy crises add to the urgent need for substantial increases to SRHR funding by European donors, and for the EU to finally meet the commitments taken at policy level.

ENDS

The 2022 Donors Delivering Report can be accessed here.

Notes to the editor:

• Donors Delivering for SRHR is an annual publication and serves as an accountability tool that analyses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database of SRHR funding disbursements. The 2022 report summarises the latest data available, which is from 2020. Donors Delivering for SRHR was previously known as Euromapping and was first published in 2011.
• The report analyses three key areas of SRHR: reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH); family planning (FP); and sexual and reproductive rights (SRHR).
• Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung (DSW) a global development organisation that addresses the challenges faced by youth to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and to meet their need for health services. We work with young people on raising awareness on SRHR, gender equality, and improving access to modern contraceptives. We work with policy-makers to ensure political and financial support for SRHR and youth-friendly services, and advocate for political commitment and critical investments into global health and R&D for poverty-related and neglected diseases. We work in close collaboration with partners to address SRHR challenges through multisectoral approaches. 
• The European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) is a network of members of parliament from across Europe who are committed to protecting the sexual and reproductive health of the world’s most vulnerable people, both at home and overseas. We believe that women should always have the right to decide upon the number of children they wish to have, and should never be denied the education or other means to achieve this that they are entitled to.