Plan Europe,as AfGH partner, organises high level conference on Health MDGs featuring Development Comissioner Andris Piebalgs

2 March 2010: The Action for Global Health’s (AfGH) conference, ‘Delivering the Right to Health with the Millennium Development Goals’ was held yesterday on the 2nd of March at the European Parliament. Representatives from the Spanish, Belgian and Hungarian EU presidencies consistently stressed the need for coherent tackling of the health MDGs.
The AfGH Brussels partners organized yesterday a high-level conference which brought together close to 300 participants including representatives from civil society organizations, policy makers and other stakeholders. The conference was moderated by Plan CEO Nigel Chapman, former Director of BBC World. Ms. Eva Joly, chair-woman of the development committee of the European Parliament, hosted the event and opened by highlighting the precarious state of the health MDGs – pointing out that these goals are the least progressed within the overall MDG framework.

Health is a right for all

Development Commissioner, Mr. Andris Piebalgs, stressed a rights-based approach to the health MDGs and the universality of health care. “Health is a right for all in Europe and beyond, for men and women, for rich and poor, for all human beings regardless their status,” he said. He discussed in detail the need to combat fragmentation within European policies and move towards a more streamlined and coherent approach. Mr. Piebalgs then handed the floor over to a panel of representatives from Spain, Belgium and Hungary – the present and future EU Presidencies respectively, who began by jointly committing to working towards a better harmonized European policy approach to development and the need for full funding to ensure this is possible.
However, each representative brought their own perspective into the discussion; The Spanish Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Ms. Soraya Rodriguez, called for a stronger plan to carry the MDGs into, as well as beyond, the deadline of 2015, whilst Peter Moors, Director General of Development cooperation of Belgium, agreed to carry on the work of the Spanish Presidency while strengthening full funding through new instruments, such as the FTT, and calling for all EU nations to fulfill past ODA commitments. The State Secretary for Development Cooperation of Hungary, Mr. Laszlo Varkonyi, added that greater funding was not the only urgent issue, but that further areas such as developing innovative mechanisms, capacity building and greater cooperation with partner countries were of critical importance to achieving the goals.

2010 is a pivotal year for the MDGs

Mr. Miguel Angel Martinez Martinez, Vice-President of the European Parliament, brought the voice of the European Parliament to the conference, reconfirming the need to strengthen our collective resolve in the face of poor results, rather than watering down the objectives. From the European Commission, Mr. Luis Riera, agreed with Mr. Martinez, though he reiterated the interconnectivity of all of the MDGs such as the importance of educating women and girls in trying to improve maternal health. 
The Brussels AfGH also Launched an ‘EU Roadmap on the Health MDGs’ outlining what the EU should urgently do for the achievement of the health related MDGs by 2015.
“With a new European Parliament and Commission, the Lisbon Treaty, the next UN summit in September and only five years to go, 2010 is a pivotal year for the MDGs,” concluded the panel moderator  Nigel Chapman. The speakers today agreed that rather than cutting our losses, meaningful results on the health MDGS are achievable with a more unified and resolute approach by European policy makers, as well as further cooperation with their partners.

For more information please go to the Action for Global Health website.