Key Benefits:
A S S E M B L And I A D A R E P U B L I C A
DRAFT RESOLUTION NO. 151 /XI/1.
IT RECOMMENDS THE GOVERNMENT TO REAFFIRM ITS COMMITMENT IN THE
A SENSE OF COMPLIANCE WITH 4º AND 5º OBJECTIVES OF
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MILLENNIUM, RELATIVE TO THE REDUCTION OF
INFANT MORTALITY AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF MATERNAL HEALTH
At the United Nations Millennium Summit, which took place in
September 2000, 189 countries, recognizing that in an increasingly globalized world
and characterized by increasing interdependence poverty transforms into a problem
transnational and transcontinental, commit themselves to work together to
end extreme poverty.
This commitment was substantiated in the Millennium Declaration, which set eight
specific development goals, to be reached by 2015. These objectives,
named the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) contemplate:
Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; Achieving universal primary education;
Promoting gender equality and empowerment of women; Reduce mortality
child; Improving maternal health; Combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases;
Ensuring environmental sustainability; Developing a global partnership for the
development.
To the Millennium Declaration, a set of international conferences followed.
The Conferences of Monterrey (2002) and Doha (2008) are highlighted on the
financing of the development, and the Paris Declarations (2005) and the Agenda of
Action of Accra (2008) that resulted in important commitments on the increase
of the effectiveness of aid.
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The progress report of the MDGs, published in July 2009 by the United Nations,
records the progress of meeting the targets set at different scales, however,
warning that the majority of donors are not making satisfactory progress in the
a sense of achieving the quantitative targets set for 2010, and that the trend
positive in the eradication of hunger since the beginning of 1990 was reversed in 2008, in the face of
food insecurity and the financial crisis.
Portugal has made up the commitments as a donor country, the mission being
fundamental of Portuguese Cooperation has been defined as that of " contributing to
realization of a better and more stable world, very much in particular in the countries
lusofones, characterized by economic and social development, and consolidation and
deepening of peace, democracy, human rights and the rule of law ".
Notwithstanding the increment to Public Aid for Development (ODA) is planned
in the Major Options of the Plan (GOP) of recent years, including in the GOP 2010-2013, the
Portugal's contribution to the Millennium Development Goals still if
finds far short of the desirable, in particular in what concerne to his contribution
for the achievement of the Millennium Goals numbers 4 and 5, and which concerts the reduction
of infant mortality and improvement in maternal health, respectively.
In 2007, Portugal invested 1% of its ODA in population programmes, VIH/Sida and
Health, insufficient percentage as compared to the 10% recommended for
achieve universal access to reproductive health in the context of the MDGs.
As it is reaffirmed by the SG of the NU Ban-Ki-moon and many organisations
international as the Women Deliver (www.womendeliver.org) and Countdown 2015
Europe (www. Countdown2015Europe.org), none of the MDGs can be reached without the
necessary investment, political and financial, in the promotion of rights and health
reproductive status of women and their families, specifically through access to the
drugs and products essential to reproductive health, and in the protection of health
maternal and newborns, which are strictly interconnected, both in what
respect the prevention as to the treatment of possible complications. The investment
political and financial in sexual and reproductive rights will, in fact, have a profound
impact, both on a social and economic level.
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The need to reaffirm the commitment of States to the fulfillment of the
4º and 5º Millennium Goals, relative to the reduction of infant mortality and improvement of the
maternal and neo-natal health, was also recognized at the G8 meeting in Rome, during
to which an appeal has been made to states to increment efforts in the sense of
pursuit of the stipulated targets: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the rate of
mortality of under five years and reduce in three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the
maternal mortality rate. This results are a long way from being reached, but
we know today that the doubling of the current funding for reproductive health,
including family planning and care with pregnancy, would reduce mortality
materna in 70%, would reduce the neo-natal mortality by half and increase the
productivity and economic growth. A small investment that means
great results.
The proximity of the United Nations Summit on the 10 years of the Millennium Declaration,
which will take place in September 2010, in New York, the realization of the V Colloquium " The
Human Rights in the Order of the Day-Millennium Development Goals: 10
years after and to five years of the deadline ", promoted by the Association for the
Family Planning, the United Nations Information Centre for Europe
Western, the United Nations Population Fund, the European Forum for
Parliamentarians and the Portuguese Parliamentary Group on Population and Development of the
Assembly of the Republic, and the good example that we draw from the partnership between the IPAD and the
UNFPA in maternal, neo-natal health and emergency obicometric care in the
Guinea-Bissau we had opportunity to visit in loco seem like moments
crucial to the recognition of maternal health as a right and to counteract the
low achievement of MDGs n. 4 and 5 and maintenance of high mortality rates
maternal, above all in developing countries.
Thus, under the applicable constitutional and regimental provisions, the and the
lower-signed MPs proposes to the Assembly of the Republic to recommend the
Government:
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-To reaffirm their commitment to the fulfillment of the 4º and 5º Objectives of
Development of the Millennium, relative to the reduction of infant mortality and improvement of the
maternal health, committing, particularly to:
a) Ensuring that the expenditure items of the Portuguese Cooperation specify the
investment in each of the Millennium Development Goals, and in each
one of its targets and indicators, namely those that are affection to the MDGs n.
4 and n. º5, concerning the reduction of infant mortality and improvement of maternal health;
b) To strengthen your investment with regard to the MDGs n. 4 and 5, in order to achieve
the established quantitative targets, specifically in what concerns the reinforcement of the
access to medicines and essential products for reproductive health;
c) Include the explication of the indicators of the MDGs 4 and 5 as essential to the reinforcement of the
primary health care in the strategic documents and advisors of the
Portuguese cooperation;
d) Include primary health care and the specificity of health care
sexual and reproductive in the strategic official documents of Cooperation in Health and
Gender;
e) to ensure that Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health, including Gender,
Women's Rights, Maternal Health, Anti-Violence Measures and Discrimination,
including traditional nefarious practices such as Female Genital Mutilation, be areas
explicit in Education and Cooperation for Development.
Assembly of the Republic, May 18, 2010.
The Deputies and the Deputies,