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The Director General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Dr Alvaro Bermejo, is in Australia this week for high level meetings with Australian Government Ministers and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). He is joined by Ms Tomoka Fukuda, Regional Director of IPPF’s East and Southeast Asia and Oceania Region (ESEAOR) and Ms Phoebe Ryan, IPPF’s Chief of the Australia and New Zealand Office. In Australia, Dr Bermejo has been privileged to meet with Australia’s Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Hon Pat Conroy. Together, they discussed how Australia can play a leadership role in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights through Australia’s international development cooperation. Last week, Dr Bermejo and Ms Fukuda visited IPPF’s Member Association in Solomon Islands, the Solomon Islands Planned Parenthood Association (SIPPA). In Solomon Islands, they witnessed SIPPA’s life-saving and critical work delivering sexual and reproductive healthcare on the ground, including mobile outreach in remote communities of Malaita Province. Australia has been a long-standing and critical partner to IPPF, supporting programming to reach women, girls, and marginalized groups across the development–humanitarian continuum around the world, with a particular focus on the Asia Pacific. In December 2022, IPPF and DFAT signed a new four-year global funding agreement for 2023 to 2026, part of which includes dedicated support to programming across the Pacific. AUD 19 million is dedicated as global funding towards the delivery of IPPF’s Strategy 2028, along with a further AUD 5.7 million to support the delivery of IPPF’s Pacific Niu Vaka Strategy, Phase 2. This generous investment will enable IPPF to reach an anticipated 1.8 million people in the Pacific over the next six years with 4.2 million essential sexual and reproductive services. IPPF is proud to stand alongside our Pacific MAs as they continue to advocate for the health and rights of those most underserved and excluded, reaching communities with essential information and high quality, person-centred sexual and reproductive health care.     In 2021, IPPF reached over 72 million people around the world with more than 155 million sexual and reproductive health services and contributed to 121 policy and legislative changes in defence of SRHR. IPPF is grateful for Australia’s ongoing support in enabling this impact. IPPF’s Director General, Alvaro Bermejo shared: “IPPF are delighted to be working with the Australian Government to continue improving the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and girls across the globe. We are grateful to them for helping us deliver more services and support at a time when inequalities are deepening, the opposition is growing, and humanitarian crises continue to place the lives of millions, particularly women and girls, at risk. As we look to build the future with our new strategy, continued support from global partners is crucial to achieving a world where everyone has access to sexual and reproductive healthcare. We hope DFAT’s strong global commitment will inspire other global leaders to take action.” For media enquiries, please contact Karmen Ivey on [email protected] or Phoebe Ryan on [email protected]    About the International Planned Parenthood Federation The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is a global service provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.  For 70 years, IPPF has delivered high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare and helped advance sexual rights, especially for people with intersectional and diverse needs that are currently unmet. Our Member Associations and partners are independent organizations that are locally owned, which means the support and care they provide is informed by local expertise and context. We advocate for a world where people are provided with the information they need to make informed decisions about their sexual health and bodies. We stand up and fight for sexual and reproductive rights and against those who seek to deny people their human right to bodily autonomy and freedom. We deliver care that is rooted in rights, respect, and dignity - no matter what.

U.S congressional leaders have announced they have reached a final spending deal for the fiscal year 2022. This bill results from months of negotiations over funding and policy decisions, including those that impact sexual and reproductive healthcare globally. Despite the inclusion of language to permanently repeal the global gag rule passed in the House and introduced in the Senate, the final legislation fails to permanently end the harmful policy that has destroyed the lives of women and girls around the world for so many years. It also does not remove discriminatory abortion bans like the Hyde, Helms, and Weldon amendments or include much-needed new investments in sexual and reproductive healthcare and international family planning programs. Dr Alvaro Bermejo, Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, said: “We are outraged to learn that the long-awaited U.S spending bill failed to permanently repeal the global gag rule, nor did it include other areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights progress on which advocates had built strong momentum. The bill fell foul to anti-choice Congress members whose primary goal is to control the bodies and reproductive rights of women and girls they will never know, whose lives they could never imagine. “Failure to utilize this golden opportunity risks the continuation of the flip-flopping of American policy that has played with the lives of millions across the globe for nearly 40 years. Ultimately the global gag rule destroys long-term access to lifesaving contraception, maternal health and HIV/STI services and forces vulnerable women and girls to carry pregnancies to term or make the agonizing decision to get a potentially deadly unsafe abortion. It also manipulates the ability of international organizations, like IPPF, to use their own funding to provide legal, safe abortion, which unethically denies women care and imposes neo-colonial policies around the world. “While the global gag rule poses serious challenges to sustained engagement with USAID, especially at a time when anti-choice movements continue to attack the rights of people worldwide, IPPF is grateful to the Biden-Harris administration for the current rescission of the policy. We will continue to engage with U.S Government global health assistance programs when possible. We are also thankful to our relentless Member Association, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Despite the challenges, they have worked tirelessly alongside thousands of women’s rights campaigners across the United States and worldwide to advocate for vulnerable women and girls everywhere. The fight for reproductive rights and justice will not end until every person can access high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare when and where they need it.” Santos Siminone, Executive Director at Associação Moçambicana para Desenvolvimento da Família (AMODEFA), said: “We are deeply saddened by the failure to permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule. For AMODEFA, IPPF’s Member Association in Mozambique, a national provider of sexual and reproductive healthcare in the country since 1989, the impact of the global gag rule meant a $2 million gap in funding - about 60% of our total budget. “The impact was almost instantaneous, forcing the closure of six programs across 12 districts in Mozambique. This denied nearly 390,000 clients access to contraception, STIs, HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis services. Almost every local population was affected, with closures impacting adolescents, youths, women, and marginalized people. “For the people we serve, the permanent repeal of the policy would have meant an end to the violation of human rights. It would have meant dignity and that women’s lives would no longer be at risk. It would have meant an end to fear, pain, tears, and chaos, especially for black and brown women from low-income countries who bear the brunt of restrictive abortion policies.” For media enquiries, please contact Karmen Ivey on [email protected] or [email protected]  

Following the disturbing reports coming out of Ukraine, IPPF has released a media statement on behalf of the Federation and its Member Association in Ukraine.   Despite the fact that sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRHR) needs increase significantly during conflict and humanitarian situations, the significant vulnerabilities of affected populations and displaced people are often overlooked, especially the experiences of women, girls and marginalized populations who are at increased risk of unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and sexual and gender-based violence. IPPF’s Director-General, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, said:   "The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is deeply concerned about the escalation of conflict in Ukraine. We take our responsibility to preserve the enormous gains made in life-saving sexual and reproductive healthcare across the country very seriously, especially for women, girls and marginalised populations, whose vulnerability and experiences are so often overlooked in humanitarian situations.  "For 20 years, IPPF has consistently worked to strengthen and protect the reproductive rights of people in Ukraine, working in the frontline conflict zones of Lugansk and Donetsk since 2014, training medical specialists to provide life-saving reproductive healthcare, psychosocial support and quality care to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. “Our teams are now contingency planning across the region to address not only the needs of those still in Ukraine, but also the millions who are likely to be displaced by the conflict and who will require critical support to continue accessing healthcare. We will work closely with partners and other NGOs to ensure the least possible disruption to services. "IPPF stands in solidarity with the international community and the brave people of Ukraine who for the last eight years have faced terrifying and difficult circumstances that nobody should ever have to suffer through. We stand by IPPF's frontline team, who, despite the dangers, continue to facilitate life-saving healthcare for those who need it most. We will be monitoring the situation closely to ensure the safety of our colleagues across the region.” For European outlets, please contact [email protected] For UK and other international media outlets, please contact Karmen Ivey on [email protected] or [email protected]  

The Guttmacher Institute has today released new data showing the impact of the UK aid cuts on sexual and reproductive health and rights for the fiscal year 2021 - 2022.  The figures show the devastating impact on the lives of women and girls around the world. Together with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the cuts threaten to undo years of progress towards gender equality and increasing access to reproductive choice. When surveyed, major sexual and reproductive health organizations reported they expected to receive at least £218.9 million in the fiscal year (FY) 2021–2022 (from April 2021 to March 2022) for family planning activities in low- and middle-income countries. The resulting cuts to the family planning programs of these major program-implementing organizations are estimated to have totalled £132.4 million in FY 2021–2022. The loss of funding will result in: 9.5 million fewer women and couples receiving contraceptive services  4.3 million more unintended pregnancies 1.8 million more unplanned births 1.4 million more unsafe abortions and 8000 more maternal deaths  The figures also show how much could have been achieved through sustained UK aid spending.  IPPF’s Director-General, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, said:   “The Guttmacher figures are a harrowing, but sadly unsurprising, insight into the catastrophic impact that the UK aid cuts will have on the health and lives of millions of women, girls and marginalized people across the globe, and serve to confirm what sexual and reproductive health charities have been saying since they were first made aware of the cuts. “We must also remember that the Guttmacher numbers are just a snapshot of the 2021 – 2022 fiscal year, and the effects of the Government’s sudden and short-sighted termination of support will stretch far beyond that, piling unthinkable pressure on people already dealing with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, and leading to millions of unintended pregnancies and thousands of preventable deaths. “With the upcoming spending review in November, we ask the UK Government to reconsider the cuts, which IPPF still believe to be outside of the boundaries of the law, and reinstate the 0.7% commitment, so that it can finally deliver on its promises to the millions of people it chose to abandon.” IPPF also signed on to a joint letter from the UK SRHR Network. For media inquiries please contact [email protected]