European Network Newsletter

IPPF EN pushed the EU for gender equality and SRHR worldwide

To promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in its own external relations, the EU has a framework known as the EU Gender Action Plan (GAP) which is up for renewal in 2020. IPPF EN strongly believes that gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women will not be possible without the realisation of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). IPPF EN has therefore been working with the European Commission to ensure that SRHR would be included at the heart of the new GAP. IPPF EN co-organised and participated in two consultations held online by the European Commission and CONCORD Europe to share its key recommendations with the EU, as well as organised a meeting with Commissioner Urpilainen’s cabinet on the topic. During these three events and meeting, the European Commission strongly supported the inclusion of SRHR in the GAP. A first draft should be released in September and IPPF EN will continue to work with the European Commission to ensure that SRHR are featured at the core of the Gender Action Plan.

SRHR at the heart of a renewed EU-Africa partnership – a call from IPPF EN

The European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) have been working towards a renewed partnership between the two regions, to be agreed upon in October 2020 during the AU-EU summit in Brussels. Access to SRHR is still difficult for many people, in particular for vulnerable or underserved communities on both continents and the African and European Unions can work together to achieve universal access to SRHR. IPPF EN has worked with partners to ensure that SRHR were recognised as a priority for such a partnership. It has in particular shared its expertise of serving the most vulnerable people in both Africa and Europe with EU Member States ahead of the adoption of their position on a renewed EU-Africa partnership in July. This has proved beneficial as EU Member States have decided to include gender equality and SRHR as one of their main priorities for a renewed EU-Africa partnership. IPPF EN will continue to work with all stakeholders involved, including the European Union, European and African States ahead of the AU-EU summit in October to ensure that SRHR issues are put at the top of the two continents’ agenda.

My Body, My Rights

Within the framework of the ‘My body, my rights’ project, a 3-year project funded by MSD for Mothers, an APP called MYRA was developed. The APP provides basic information on family planning and contraceptives, SRHR, body and hygiene, sex and sexuality, SGBV, etc., and includes a fertility tracker for women/girls. It was tested this summer among the target groups – Roma women and men in Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia and will be available (in English, Romanian, Serbian and Bulgarian) in google playstore and iOS Appstore in October.

The APP is developed within a project that aims to improve maternal health among Roma in Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria through sexuality education, advocacy and enabling access to FP services. The need for specific activities towards Roma remains high, as data from different studies show a higher (maternal) mortality among Roma, child marriage and children at a young age, higher infant mortality rates, structural discrimination, also within the health care sector, etc. The MYRA APP is more relevant than ever, especially as COVID made physical visits and face-to-face support and capacity building difficult or even impossible during the lockdowns in many countries.  

More information can be obtained from Marieka Vandewiele, the regional project coordinator mvandewiele@ippf.org

‘Youth SpectActors’ – Prevention of GBV

With EC funds, the Estonian, Latvian, Romanian and Serbian MAs are using social theatre to challenge gender stereotypes and norms. They are targeting young people who are both the actors and spectators in the play. The methodology was developed and successfully tested by the Serbian MA with IPPF Innovation Funds and is thus now being replicated in Estonia, Latvia and Romania. During the COVID-crisis, it was even adapted to be run online. IPPF EN supports the safeguarding, M&E, regional dissemination & learning aspects of the project:

• Following a training on safeguarding policies & procedures last January, the MAs trained their staff, volunteers, board members and consultants on their updated policies and procedures. In a next step, the MAs will support their local partners (mostly schools) in developing and implementing a safeguarding policy and system.  
• A regional (hopefully face-to-face) meeting for all MAs in the European Network and 2 webinars are planned for 2021 allowing us to exchange good practices and lessons learned on GBV prevention.
• IPPF EN will run a campaign on social media in 2021.

This two-year project (2019-2021) funded by the EC entered its second and final year. It is led and coordinated by the Serbian MA.

More information on the IPPF EN activities can be obtained from Marieka Vandewiele, Senior Programme Advisor: mvandewiele@ippf.org

SRHR will be a priority for EU budget 2021-2027

The negotiations between EU institutions on the new EU long term budget for 2021-2027 (called Multiannual Financial Framework – MFF) are continuing and will be finalised by the end of the year. IPPF EN has already some good news to share as the EU institutions have agreed to include SRHR, health and gender equality as top priorities for the new EU development aid instrument called the NDICI. In addition, the EU allocated budget to gender equality inside the EU through its Rights and Values programme, which could for example fund projects aiming at fighting against Gender-Based Violence (GBV). The EU also designed a new programme dedicated to health (the EU4Health programme), on which IPPF EN is working, together with Members of the European Parliament to make sure that SRHR are included and that projects aiming at ensuring access to SRHR can be funded by such a programme. IPPF EN has brought its expertise of SRHR and of serving underserved and vulnerable communities to the EU, to ensure the integration of SRHR issues in relevant funding programmes. It has for example written letters to Commissioners and Heads of States and governments which were also shared by MAs with their governments, proposed amendments and worked with MEPs. A lot of work remains to be done but IPPF EN is confident that the new EU long term budget will allocate funding to SRHR and gender equality projects inside and outside of Europe.

Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights – Human Rights Comment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, published on Tuesday 21st July a Human Rights Comment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE). IPPF EN contributed extensively to the content of this Human Rights Comment. The text reaffirms access to CSE as a human right. It underlines the many proven benefits of CSE for children and society as a whole. It stresses that CSE is a powerful tool to promote respect for diversity and combat discrimination, abuse and violence, particularly sexual violence against children, gender-based violence, homophobia and transphobia. It recommends that CSE be provided for by law and mandatory in the education system from an early age, with adequately trained teachers and consulted and involved young, and that it also be provided to out-of-school children and youth.

European Week of Action for Girls 2020

The European Week of Action for Girls (EWAG) is a week-long programme of events and activities, based around the International Day of the Girl Child, on Sunday 11th October.  

This year’s EWAG focused on the relationship between the European Union (EU) and Africa. In the framework of EWAG the young advocates have been trained in advocacy and communications and provided with a platform to speak out about how the EU-Africa partnership can reflect their aspirations and unlock their potential. ENRO invited two young volunteers from our members in the Global South and one from Portugal, who is part of the YSAFE network, to speak with decision makers about how access to SRHR and efforts to end SGBV could be reflected in the EU-Africa partnership. You can still check out the recordings of our online events:

• Girls Connect with Netflix to talk gender stereotyping in media and decision-making;
• Girls Connect with Parliamentarians from the European Parliament and from Africa;
• Girls connect to shape the EU-Africa partnership and unlock girls’ power with UNICEF, the European External Action Service and DG DEVCO.

Updates from YSAFE

YSAFErs have been hard at work preparing for the first ever online Annual Meeting. Sessions have been spread out over a few months to allow the delegates time to ease into getting to know each other, and to not overwhelm them with solid weekends of Zoom calls.

We kicked off in August with some digital coffee breaks – relaxed social sessions that were designed entirely for building up a sense of community. The more rigorous SRHR content began at the beginning of October with a sharing session in which delegates presented methods they had used to keep youth work in the MAs going during Covid-19 lockdowns. By the end of October, delegates will also have participated in interactive workshops on HIV stigma and safe online sexuality education delivery – sessions that we designed in response to our survey of YSAFE members’ needs at the beginning of summer. They will also have voted in a new Steering Committee for 2020-2021. 

During this same period, YSAFE’s first ever transnational podcast team have been recording our pilot series of episodes, six in English and two in Russian, for our new podcast, “Sex PositiviTEA with YSAFE”. These cover questions such as “What does sex-positivity mean for young transgender youth?” and “How do you define your sexuality for yourself after growing up in a conservative environment?” and we look forward to sharing these into the autumn!

Updates from the European Movement Accelerator Programme Social Listening with the Social Media Intelligence Unit: ENRO has recently invested in a new social listening tool that will allow us to track online discourse around SRHR and see the narratives that are cutting through. The tool shows us which posts are having the most traction, whether these posts are bot-generated, who is boosting engagement with Facebook ads, and which hashtags tend to appear in parallel with key SRHR issues. We also used the tool to help our Polish partner develop messaging and visual content that was shown to appeal to their target audiences, and will be using the tool to understand opposition narratives around demographic decline in a new project (more below).  New project on demography: We have recently started a new project to understand harmful narratives around demographic decline and to develop counter-narratives. We are working with a communications consultant who has been leading us through workshops and message-testing so we can be strategic in our communication around this subject. Thanks to MA France and Serbia who have taken part so far! We’re also now working with researchers in Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia to better understand the mobilisation for and against SRHR in these countries. We will also delve into the ways in which fears around demographic decline have been exploited by right-wing and populist leaders in these countries.   Reframing trainings:We have had trainings with our MAs in France and Ukraine to explore the findings of Glocalities’ values-based research in these two countries. In France, the focus was on using the findings to strategically communicate with MPs in the lead up to the government’s reform of national abortion law. In Ukraine, the training looked at framing techniques to mobilise supporters and convince moveable middle audiences on CSE. We also held a reframing training with Malta with a view to support local activists’ mobilisation for abortion rights.

Membership Updates

European Network welcomes 3 new collaborative partners

At the end of last year, IPPF EN introduced a new (thematic) approach to its collaborative partners framework and we are pleased to introduce three IPPF EN collaborative partners that joined our network over the past months. The focus of our first call for collaborative partners was on comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), a strategic priority area for IPPF and our region.

The below organizations joined the IPPF European Network:

The Health for Youth Association in Moldova (www.yk.md ; www.neovita.md)
Health for Youth works with vulnerable young people through Youth Friendly Health Services (YFHS) and partner organizations. They integrated a network of 41 YFHS (Neovita) within the health system and ensured financial support from the Ministry of Health for it. They gather over 400 active young volunteers and their network is a winner of the UN Human Rights award Moldova in the category “children’s and youth groups and organizations”.
The Executive Director is Mrs Galina Lesco (galina.lesco@gmail.com) . 

Unity «Yuksak Salohiyat»  – Uzbekistan
The organization was established in 2018 by a team that was engaged in the Uzbek IPPF MA which was closed in 2015. They are involved in public debate on new SRH Laws in Uzbekistan and have a partnership with KMPA, the IPPF MA in Kazakhstan. They also partner with the National Centre for Reproductive Health and work on preventing early marriages, a big issue in Uzbekistan and currently have some projects supported by the American Embassy.
The Executive Director is Mrs Natalya Sviridiva (yuksaka.2019@gmail.com) 

The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) in the UK (www.fsrh.org)
This collaborative partnership goes beyond CSE. FSRH, established in 1993, is a faculty of the Royal College of the Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Their specialist committees of SRH doctors and nurses work together to produce high quality training programmes, specialist conferences and events, clinical guidance and other SRH learning resources. FSRH is also the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health (APPG SRH) in the UK.
The Executive Director is Mr Harry Walker (HWalker@fsrh.org)

We have developed a 2-year Memorandum of Understanding with these organizations, focusing on advancing our mutual CSE agenda in Moldova and Uzbekistan and setting up a broader collaboration framework with the Faculty of SRH in the UK, who started the application process for IPPF membership. Thank you for joining us in welcoming these organizations to IPPF EN. 

For any further questions in this regard feel free to contact Lena Luyckfasseel: lluyckfasseel@ippf.org at the IPPF EN regional office. 

Accreditation

On 3-7 July, a first online accreditation review was conducted with the Ukrainian MA. Following the Covid crisis and the impossibility to conduct field review visits in many countries, the IPPF Membership Committee had decided for an online approach to be tested. The preparation of online interviews was reinforced, and the usual 3-day agenda extended to 4 days. Overall, the online review was fruitful, and it brought valuable learnings that were shared with colleagues in the secretariat and that also informed the next accreditation review that was also conducted online with Sensoa on 15-17 September. In both exercises all the points included in the respective Terms of Reference were covered, although a majority of colleagues expressed concerns that the lack of face-to-face exchanges did not bring an optimal way of learning and sharing. This was further reflected in the IPPF accreditation focal point meeting on 23 September – but in the coming months it is likely that reviews will mostly be conducted online. 

Staff Updates

We have unfortunately said goodbye to Ariane Vaughan, Assistant – European and International Affairs, Anamaria Suciu, Assistant – Programme and Performance, and Mathilde Chanfreau, Intern – Programme and Performance. We want to thank them all for their great work and commitment to IPPF and wish them well on their next adventure!

Some happy news is that our dear colleague, Catherine Bailey Gluckman, Programme Advisor in the Youth Unit, got married in mid October! We would like to wish her and her husband all the best and many happy years to come! 🙂 

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