The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Burundi has today approved EUR 17.4 million in funding for a joint national programme “Improving the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and youth in Burundi” (2016-2020). Over a period of five years the programme will be gradually scaled-up nation-wide.

On Thursday 19 November an agreement has been signed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Right Here Right Now Partnership, an alliance of four Dutch NGOs and three networks from the South, all working in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights. The partnership aims at better information and education and access to comprehensive youth friendly services through sustainable policy changes. A little over € 34,6 million has been made available for this 5-year programme, that will be executed in eleven countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Today the Heads of State and other Ministers of the EU and African countries will present a final declaration on the European refugee crisis. This declaration is the result of the Valletta Summit on Migration (11/12 November) in Malta with the political ambition to offer a concrete solution to the refugee crisis. The final declaration contains the Plan of Action as well as financial resources from the EU Emergency Trust fund. In Rutgers view sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) cannot be absent in the elaboration of the Plan of Action. SRHR must be part of the EU Emergency Trust fund.

3- 6 November, the 3rd International Conference on Women’s Shelters took place in The Hague. More than a thousand delegates from across the globe gathered to share experiences, increase awareness, and exchange effective approaches for improving safety and support to survivors, and ultimately, ending violence against women and children. 4 members of the MenEngage Europe Alliance who attended the conference were inspired, but an important question remained: Why did so few men attend the conference while most of the violence is perpetrated by men enacting false notions of manhood, power and control? This blog is an open invitiation for further dialogue.

In October an expert meeting took place in Pretoria (South Africa) on SRHR education and HIV prevention programmes for adolescents and young people. For three days 100 people, from 18 different countries, working with and for young people and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV prevention had the opportunity to link policy and practice. Read a reflection of the results in the online magazine called ‘More Access and Better Quality’.

Rutgers appointed Mr Ton Coenen as its new executive director. The Supervisory Board views him as a decisive leader, who will take charge of the organisation with a great deal of commitment. Ton Coenen, who is to replace Dianda Veldman, will assume his post on 1 January 2016.

Rutgers, member of Countdown 2015 Europe*, welcomes the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and calls upon the Dutch and all other European governments to take ambitious steps to reach the agreed goals and targets.

Latest Barometer figures show EU Member States are still failing to meet their commitments to women’s modern contraceptive needs as situation stagnates or worsens at unacceptably low levels.

The Barometer of Women’s Access to Modern Contraceptive Choice aims to put Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) at the forefront of the EU and national agendas. As we near the end of the Millennium Development Goals, it is now more critical than ever to ensure a consistent and targeted approach to SRHR policies across the EU and its member states.

In the context of the Dutch subsidy system MFS II (Co-financing II) unique evaluations have been carried out worldwide with regard to the results of developing programmes of 64 Dutch development organisations. The work was unique in its complexity and dimension: the work of dozens of Dutch NGOs has jointly been evaluated. These evaluations were carried out by independent academic researchers and give an evidence based confirmation that Dutch development cooperation is efficient and effective.