Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694573253041.pdf (Australia)
Submission to the Inquiry into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) March 2018 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)Submission 82 As a leading global provider of sexual and reproductive health services and key advocate for reproductive rights, Marie Stopes International Australia welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee Inquiry into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to highlight the importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights as a key contributor to gender equality and the SDGs.
With service delivery in 37 countries, Marie Stopes International Australia transforms the lives of women and girls by providing them with reproductive choice.

This includes access to sexual and reproductive health education, counselling, modern forms of contraception, STI and HIV testing, cervical cancer screening and safe abortion.
In 2017, 26.9 million women globally were using a form of contraception supplied by Marie Stopes International, averting an estimated 5.4 million unsafe abortions, 8.2 million unintended pregnancies and 23,900 maternal deaths.

Reproductive health and the Sustainable Development Goals Sexual and reproductive health has been recognised as critical to ensuring health and wellbeing, achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls.
These are core principles underlying the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), cutting across health, gender, education, poverty alleviation, economic growth, sustainable cities and climate action.

Reproductive rights are essential for women and girls to realise their autonomy and agency.

The right to family planning enables fulfilment of other human rights, such as gender equality, by allowing women to access education and employment, increase their negotiating power and raise their socioeconomic status.
Marie Stopes International Australia plays an important role in the Australian Government’s foreign policy contribution to the SDGs, supporting the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy and implementing significant DFAT funded projects throughout the region including in Papua New Guinea, Timor L’este, Cambodia, Vietnam and Nepal.
Our expertise and experience includes primary healthcare, government and private sector capacity development, health financing, global advocacy and partnerships for development.

We commend the government on their commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment through the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) program.
Addressing the needs of women and girls is key to achieving the SDGs, and gender measures are reflected in targets across all 17 SDGs including health, education and economic inequality.

Response to selected terms of reference Which of the SDGs is Australia best suited to achieving through our Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) program, and should Australia’s ODA be consolidated to focus on achieving core SDGs?
It is important to recognise that the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are inherently interconnected.

Achieving one SDG, for example Good Health and Wellbeing, will fundamentally contribute to economic growth because a healthy workforce can be more productive.

Rather than isolating any one goal to focus on, we propose two key approaches to addressing and monitoring the goals, both of which reflect priorities within Australia’s existing aid portfolio and could be extended to domestic implementation.
1 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)Submission 82 Firstly, acknowledging that gender equality and women’s empowerment underpins the success of all the goals.

By taking a gender approach to the SDGs, Australia can continue to capture their success in this area and deliver a broad range of outcomes domestically and internationally.
A commitment to gender equality includes the ability for women and girls to realize their sexual and reproductive rights and ensure access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Further to the focus on gender, key to implementation and delivery of the SDGs is the principle of ‘Leave no one behind’.
A failing of the Millennium Development Goals was that despite significant achievements made over time, progress was ‘uneven’ with “millions of people left behind, especially the poorest and those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability, ethnicity or geographic location”1.

A commitment to those most vulnerable, supported by concrete strategies to support inclusion through design, delivery, monitoring/evaluation and reporting should be considered.
Taking a ‘Leave no one behind’ approach ensures that within Australia and through our overseas development assistance, we are addressing the needs of those without alternate means of support, those affected by poverty and violence and those most vulnerable to climate change.

Addressing the understanding and awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals across the Australian Government and in the wider Australian community Increasing understanding and awareness of the SDG Framework is key to their success.
Global action, awareness and support for the Millennium Development Goals helped bring about change and similar engagement is critical for achieving the SDGs2.

Promoting the SDGs provides an opportunity to educate the Australian public about the importance and complexity of taking a sustainable development approach.
In particular, there is an opportunity to improve understanding of the role that the Australian Government can play domestically and internationally to help bring people out of poverty, to champion rights and to ensure peace and stability.

Raising awareness of the SDGs allows the government to highlight the successes already achieved domestically and through the Australian Government’s Overseas Development Aid program.
For example, in Timor-Leste, where the Australian Government has been the largest partner since 2002, it is estimated that the maternal mortality rate reduced by 75% since 1990.

The total fertility rate for women in Timor-Leste has also dropped from 7.8 children per woman in 2003 to 4.2 in 2016, demonstrating that Australia’s contribution to women’s health, empowerment and equality has made a significant difference.
The SDG framework can also provide an accountability mechanism for the Australian government, increasing understanding and generating support from the Australian public for Australia’s targets.

We should be proud of what we have achieved, and mindful of the areas for development.

Mapping SDGs across our existing domestic and international policies would allow clear interpretation of the data.

It would also provide a consistent message of how Australia will contribute to global sustainable development.
From an international perspective, promoting our overseas development assistance through the lens of the SDGs allows further exploration of the themes identified in the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper such as partnerships, shared prosperity and global cooperation.

1 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf 2 Lomazzi M, Borisch B, Laaser U.

The Millennium Development Goals: experiences, achievements and what’s next.

Global Health Action.


2014;7:10.3402/gha.v7.23695.

doi:10.3402/gha.v7.23695.

2 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)Submission 82 What SDGs are currently being addressed by Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) program?

Through the existing ODA program, Australia has contributed widely towards the SDGs with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.

With a focus on both Private Sector Development and Human Development, there is scope to address all 17 of the goals.
Sexual and reproductive health is an area of considerable success and great potential.

DFAT’s Gender Equality and Empowering Women and Girls strategy recognises reproductive health as a key factor in gender equality and economic empowerment, and the Family Planning and the Aid Program- Guiding Principles are supportive of comprehensive care.
Family planning is a mechanism for achieving the SDGs as it contributes to decreasing maternal and child mortality and poverty, achieving gender equality, sustainable cities, responsible consumption, decent work, and access to higher education.

Family planning can also help mitigate climate change and promote sustainable communities.
As a DFAT accredited NGO, Marie Stopes International Australia implements sexual and reproductive health programs that are innovative, inclusive, focused on women’s empowerment and encompass the private sector.

With support from Australia’s ODA program, some of our successes in the region include:   In Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, our outreach work in regional and remote communities is transforming the lives of women who would otherwise have no access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Australian Government support is critical to this success.

By providing services and building the capacity of public sector, DFAT supported MSI to deliver over 50,000 family planning services in 2017 contributing to SDGs including good health and wellbeing, reducing inequalities, poverty reduction and gender equality.
Through partnership with a range of local and international organisations, our work is extending to the prevention of violence and menstrual hygiene management, both key drivers of gender equality.

In Cambodia and Viet Nam, we work with garment factory workers to provide them with high quality sexual and reproductive health services.

This is a mechanism for promoting gender equality amongst a vulnerable population.
In Cambodia, women make up an estimated 90% of the garment factory industry, accounting to 700,000 workers.

Most garment factory workers (GFW) are typically under 24 years, unmarried and with low levels education.

With Australian Government support, in 2017 we worked in in 13 garment factories in Cambodia reaching over 2,000 workers with family planning services.
Supporting women to participate economically while improving their health and wellbeing has a significant impact on SDGs including decent work and economic growth, good health and wellbeing, poverty reduction, reducing inequalities and gender equality.

However, Australia’s financial commitment to sexual and reproductive health falls far short of the amount needed to address unmet need in the region.
From 2014 – 2016 there was a halving of aid directed to family planning as part of Australian ODA from AU$46.4 million in 2013/14 to AU$23.7m million in 2015/163.

This is despite the 214 million women globally with an unmet need for modern contraception and the impact of the US Mexico City Policy on access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services worldwide.

A properly funded sexual and reproductive health program can save lives, empower women and girls and improve economic outcomes.
In order to fully deliver on DFAT’s commitment to gender equality and economic empowerment, and contribute further to the SDGs we propose that the Australian government: 3 https://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/statistical-summary-2013-14.pdf and http://dfat.gov.au/about- us/publications/Documents/statistical-summary-2015-16.pdf 3 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)Submission 82  Continues to advocate on the world stage in support of sexual and reproductive health and rights, including in times of humanitarian emergencies.
Our messaging should align with the SDG targets, with a view to reducing the maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births (target 3.1) and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health services by 2030 (target 3.7)  Meets Australia’s 2012 commitment to the Family Planning 2020 Summit and invests at least $50 million a year in contraceptive information, services and supplies.
If we fulfil this commitment and successfully contribute to global efforts to address women’s unmet need for contraception by 2020, we will have met an important interim target, putting us firmly on track to achieving SDG targets 3.1 and 3.7 by 2030.

 Embraces the guiding principle of the Agenda 2030 document and endeavour to leave no one behind.

This means targeting sexual and reproductive health services to the countries and populations where needs are greatest: i.e.
(i) the 12 countries in our region that are home to 90 per cent of maternal deaths4; and (ii) rural communities, ethnic minorities, people living with disability, sex workers, and people who may face persecution or stigmatization due to their gender identity or sexual orientation.

 Ensures this investment is successful by supporting organisations working on the ground to deliver high quality sexual and reproductive health care.
This includes providing services and information that are appropriate, accessible, and free from coercion or discrimination.

Examples of best practice in how other countries are implementing the SDGs from which Australia could learn.

Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy prioritises gender equality within the SDGs across all objectives of the Swedish Foreign Service’s action plan.
The objective of the policy is to contribute to gender equality and full enjoyment of human rights by all women and girls through the following objectives:  Human Rights;  Freedom from Violence;  Participation in peace efforts;  Political Participation;  Economic Empowerment;  Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights; Sweden has recognised that addressing gender inequity is key to inclusive development and counteracting discriminatory systems that have worked against vulnerable groups in accessing resources, leadership opportunities, rights and representation.
Australia can follow Sweden’s lead and make a difference in the following ways:  Continue to prioritise reproductive health for women and girls as part of foreign policy, promoting SRH as a rights based and cost-effective measure for women’s empowerment (including economic empowerment); Increase ODA to offset the devastating impact of the US Mexico City Policy to the global health sector;   Ensure that women and girls remain the centre of foreign policy;  Prioritise family planning as a mechanism for achieving the SDGs.
 Continue to prioritise the needs and rights of the most vulnerable groups in society and work across sectors to ensure their in society and work across sectors to ensure their development program is inclusive and effective.

4 Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Timor- Leste 4 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)Submission 82