 On 10-19 July the UN High-Level Political Forum takes place in New York. The Forum monitors the progress in realising the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Belgium will report for the 2nd time on its efforts. The report discusses both Belgium’s domestic progress and international support for the sustainable development goals.
 Sensoa had the pleasure of hosting colleagues from Sex og Politikk to promote international cooperation on sexual and reproductive health and rights. During the visit, we exchanged knowledge and gained a deeper understanding of each other's work and challenges faced in our respective countries.
 Marlies Casier, international policy advisor with Sensoa International is leaving the Sensoa team. As of September she will start a new job as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University. Marlies worked for Sensoa for over a decade.
 You are interested in sexual health? Equally in an international context? In that case we’ve got the perfect summer course for you, which you can follow from anywhere and at your own pace. It suffices to develop a simple free profile to walk through the different modules of this e-learning on sexual and reproductive health. When you’ve finalized the 3 hour-programme, you’ll receive a certificate by the Belgian Development Cooperation. Hence, not only will you’ve learned a lot, but you can also add an interesting extra line to your CV.
 “We need to shatter the myths around population”. That is one of the core messages of UNFPA’s 2023 flagship State of the World Population report, presented on April 26th in the Belgian Senate to the ‘Parliamentarians for the 2030 Agenda’.
 The 56th session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) did not manage to find a consensus on the topic of education, which will impact the lives of young people, adolescents, girls and marginalised groups.
 For the first time, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) has adopted Agreed Conclusions on the theme of Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.
 Sensoa’s international policy adivisor and chair of the SRHR Working Group, Marlies Casier, invited experts to discuss the voluntary nature of family planning at the annual Be-cause Health Conference on taboos in global health. The speakers discussed the troubling history of family planning. They explained how framing of population growth in low and middle countries as a threat to the world continues to drive family planning programmes. This turns women’s fertility into an instrument and leads to the neglect of infertility concerns.
 Different stakeholders in Belgium’s international cooperation are invested in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in low- and middle-income countries. They are seeking to advance maternal health, access to abortion, comprehensive sexuality education, the sexual violence response, the prevention of female genital mutilation/cutting, … Decolonising cooperation on SRHR and making progress on the ground requires us however to decenter the European point of view. Programmes risk failing if we do not understand people’s needs, local knowledge and points of view, and if we forgo people’s agency.
 Worldwide, efforts are being made to provide quality comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) for young people. It’ is also an important topic in Belgium, with common working points in the Flemish and French-speaking parts of the country. An exchange organised by the 'Parliamentarians for the 2030 Agenda' took a closer look at the challenges and opportunities for advancing CSE. International and national experts shared their knowledge and the session was introduced by a motivating message from Minister for Development Cooperation and Major Cities Policy Caroline Gennez.
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