§ Chris McCaffertyTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on the availability of reproductive health supplies globally; and what steps the Government is taking to increase availability. [132311]
§ Hilary BennEstimates suggest that 350 million couples worldwide lack access to modern family planning methods, and as many as 150 million women want to prevent or delay pregnancy but are not using any method of family planning.
The aim of family planning programmes is to enable couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to do so.
The Department for International Development (DFID) is one of the leading bilateral providers of condoms and other forms of contraceptives to developing countries. We are also supporting a number of male and female condom social marketing programmes. We are helping the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to provide the widest achievable range of safe and effective family planning and contraceptive methods, including condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS. In January 2001, we provided 513W UNFPA with a grant of £25 million to help meet immediate needs for reproductive health commodities, including condoms, in a range of countries facing immediate shortages. We have increased our core annual funding to UNFPA from £15 million to £18 million.
The Government have committed £16 million (over five years) to the Medical Research Council's Microbicide development programme. New technologies such as the female condom and microbicides will be an important step forward. They will give women the power to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
The Government champions reproductive health issues at a country level, including through support for UNFPA. DFID works through Sector Wide Approaches (SWAPS) and Direct Budget Support as ways of supporting countries' Poverty Reduction Strategies. Within these processes it is important to ensure that sufficient attention is given to reproductive health issues, for example the assured supply and availability of reproductive health commodities. In many circumstances DFID is also continuing to ring-fence its support for reproductive health and HIV/AIDS work, including for example social marketing programmes. DFID spent £31 million in 2002–03 on activities within SWAPS that had support for reproductive health services as one of their objectives.
§ Angus RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, column 74W, on reproductive health, what the structure of the Open Health Institute in Russia is; and if he will make a statement. [133200]
Mr. Gareth ThomasThe Open Health Institute is a Russian non-governmental organisation which works to resolve the most pressing health problems facing the Russian population. It was established in January 2003 as an independent NGO and previously was part of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) in Russia. It continues to have a close affiliation with the Open Society Institute, from which it currently receives core funding. DFID is providing £4.2 million to OSI/OHI for three years from September 2001 for a project which aims to reduce the transmission of HIV among injecting drug users and commercial sex workers in a network of over 40 harm reduction sites in Russia. The project was most recently reviewed in September 2003 and its outcomes are expected to be largely achieved by the project's end in August 2004.
DFID's collaboration with the Open Health Institute is a valuable part of the Department's HIV prevention programme in Russia. The purpose of the programme is to influence the Russian Government and society to make a timely and effective response to HIV/AIDS by targeting vulnerable groups. There are over 250,000 officially-registered HIV cases in Russia, but the real number may be significantly higher. This is one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the world.