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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,