Committee on Development Ordinary meeting
10 November 2026
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DEVE European Parliament
Follow its sittings00:00 - 03:36
S&D Député européen
President | Délégation pour les relations avec les pays de la Communauté andine 
Okay colleagues, we will proceed now with our point number 12 on our busy agenda of this committee today. It's on Gender Equality Week, which we celebrate already for several years, and we'll discuss the impact of global funding cuts on sexual and reproductive health rights. So, the discussion today will explore the global state of play on sexual and reproductive health rights and how funding cuts are hindering progress on a global level and severely affecting women's organizations working directly with communities, including in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. Those organizations play a vital role in advancing the sexual and reproductive health rights agenda as they represent women's needs and priorities and through grassroots action help translate global commitments into meaningful change on the ground. As the world largest development donor, the European Union has a crucial role to play in protecting and supporting sexual and reproductive health rights, which are currently facing significant financial and political challenges.
We also, my, myself, I witnessed that during our negotiations on Global Europe, for example. The importance of the EU response through instruments such as gender action plans, NDICI-Global Europe, which I mentioned, and upcoming Global Europe instrument is, therefore, clear. The exchange of views is an important opportunity to discuss all those aspects with our four guests today, who are with us. And we have very well-known director of the representation office of United Nations Population Fund to the European Union, Ms. Birgit Van Hout, who is with us today. Welcome, Birgit.
We have Brigitte Luggin, if I spelled it well, yes, the team leader for gender equality in the unit for governance, democracy, gender equality and human rights at the DG INTPA of European Commission. Thank you very much for coming. We have Mr. Timothée Tambwe Casissa, chief of projects at the women rights organization AFPD in the DRC. Mr. Casissa will be joining us remotely from Democratic Republic of Congo. He is online, as I understand.
And Ms. Magdymar León from the Venezuelan feminist non-governmental organization AVESA, whose mission is to promote and defend sexual and reproductive rights. And Ms. León will be also joining us remotely from beautiful, but far away from us, Venezuela. So the order is that I will give the floor first to our friend from United Nations and we continue with all other equally distinguished guests. So Birgit Van Hout, director, you have 8 minutes for your address and then we continue, and then we go for Q&A session.
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