Gender equality must be central to post Millennium Development Goals framework

Fine Gael TD for Dublin South and Chair of the Dáíl All-Party Interest Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Development, Olivia Mitchell, has today (Tuesday) said that achieving all of the Millennium Development Goals depends on access to reproductive health and rights by the world’s poorest women who are the family providers.

Speaking in Dáil Éireann today (Tuesday), Deputy Mitchell said: ‘Ahead of next week’s informal meeting of EU Development Ministers and at the beginning of our EU Presidency, I would like to encourage the Minister for Overseas Development and Trade, Joe Costello TD, to prioritise gender equality and maternal and child health as issues of importance and urgency at the various opportunities arising from our presidency role.

“The prime Millennium Development Goal is, of course, to end hunger, but ending hunger crucially depends on a healthy, educated female population in the developing world. It is an established fact that access to family planning goes hand in hand with improvements in health and increased prosperity. If we want to eliminate hunger and poverty, then we have to achieve equality of rights for the world’s poorest women.

“Without sexual and reproductive rights, as well as access to family planning services, women have no opportunity to pull themselves and their children out of the cycle of poverty.

“Over a quarter of a million of the worlds’ poorest women die each year in child birth. Progress in giving universal access to family planning is actually slowing rather than improving.

“I am urging Minister Costello, at next week’s informal EU Development Ministers meeting, to ensure that gender equality be made central to the development of the post Millennium Development Goals framework.”