Sensoa's annual review of the expenditure of the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD) shows that expenditures for health and reproductive health increased from €133 million in 2019 to €141 million in 2020.  This is mainly due to an increase in the expenditures for reproductive health from €24.86 million to €33.45 million, and particularly due to the increased investment in sexual and reproductive health in Belgium's existing governmental cooperation programmes with partner countries.
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Sensoa asks Minister of Development Cooperation Meryame Kitir to continue on this growth path, established during the previous legislature. Maintaining and expanding this level requires that sexual and reproductive health and rights, including HIV, systematically receive the necessary attention and resources within the new bilateral cooperation programmes.

40 years ago the first people dying of aids were registered. At a seminar with the Parliamentarians for the 2030 Agenda, Prof. Marie Laga (ITM) explained how the epidemic grew at an alarming speed in the 1990s and 2000s. As it hit countries in Southern Africa, life-expectancy in countries such as Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and South Africa dropped below the level of the 1960s. Things started to change when in 1996 anti-retroviral treatment (ART) became available for people in the wealthy North. However, the drugs were unaffordable for patients living in the South. It was only thanks to activists’ campaigns that political recognition and action came about, and brought about fundamental change with the creation of international coordination through UNAIDS, and increased funding through the Global Fund and PEPFAR. This led to a rapid scale-up of people’s access to ART, standing at 2% in 2001 and amounting to 73% today. However, with 1.5 million new infections in 2020, we are not seeing ‘the end of aids’ yet and HIV prevention remains the biggest challenge. 

One year after the highly controversial changes to the Polish abortion law making Poland one of the EU-countries with the most restrictive access to abortion care, the human rights and rule of law situation in Poland continues to deteriorate. 
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Two members of the parliamentary group Parliamentarians for 2030 Agenda, Séverine de Laveleye and Orry Van de Wauwer witnessed this when they participated in the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive rights’ annual Conference in Warsaw, Poland on 21-22 October. At the end of a first day of panel discussions on SRHR in Poland and worldwide, the participants signed a statement of commitment with regard to Poland and the global state of SRHR.

Across the globe COVID-19 has led to the closure of schools for weeks and sometimes months on end. In many cases, distance learning turned out to be an imperfect substitute to live, on campus, classes and the school closures deepened existing inequalities, disproportionally affecting those who had already fallen behind: girls and women, poor people, refugees and ethnic minorities.

“The right to safe and legal abortion is under pressure around the world. We need to make sure the clock is not being turned back.” With these words MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld opened the webinar held on the international day for safe abortion. The webinar launched the new European Abortion policies Atlas. The Atlas compares European countries in women’s access to abortion. Belgium figures in the European top 10 but lags the UK, Scandinavia and neighbouring France and the Netherlands. The obligatory waiting period in Belgium could be shortened and Belgium could do better in tackling disinformation about abortion. 

​What happens when Antwerp youth and Palestinian teenagers (virtually) sit together? Curiosity, recognition and humbleness. That is what we were witness to. On September 22-23rd Sensoa co-organised an exchange with UNFPA Palestine for young people from 15 Palestinian schools in Jerusalem and a class of 3rd graders of Koninklijk Atheneum Antwerpen.
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The youngsters talked about their lives during the lockdowns – “My life was put on hold” -, their expectations as to marriage and relationships – ‘love’ and ‘spending time together’ ranked highest - and their ideas about gender and situations of sexual transgressive behaviour.  

UNAIDS’ recent report finds that worldwide goals for 2020 have not been reached, despite past years’ efforts. More people know their HIV-status, more people have access to medicines and more people have an undetectable viral load thanks to treatment. Yet, the efforts to prevent new infections have been less successful. The number of new infections among adults has hardly dropped in the past 4 years. Not a single region reached the goal to decrease new infections by 75% compared to 2016.  

LGBTI-persons and particularly young people ran increased risks of verbal and physcial violence during the lockdowns, and many struggled with depressions and thoughts of suicide. Especially those who could not ‘out’ themselves at home endured very challenging times. Being disconnected from their peers pushed young LGBTI-persons even more into social isolation, says senator, member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and chair of the ‘Parliamentarians for the 2030 Agenda’, Fourat Ben Chikha, at the Human rights conference held in Copenhagen during the World Pride late August. The impact of the measurements on the human rights of LGBTI-persons needs close monitoring, so he said, to allow the adoption of necessary (preventive) actions to guarantee their rights.
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​Over 100 parliamentarians from all over the world had gathered in Copenhagen to discuss the contemporary challenges for LGBTI-persons. Also, MP Goedele Liekens and Flemish MP and senator Orry Van de Wauwer, both members of the ‘Parliamentarians for the 2030 Agenda’ were present. Former member and current Vice-Prime Minister Petra De Sutter represented the Belgian government at the World Pride. 

A high-level meeting (HLM) on AIDS under the theme - End Inequalities. End AIDS - was convened from 8 to 10 June 2021, in New York. The HLM made a comprehensive review of the progress on the commitments made in the 2016 Political Declaration towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 and had to set out priorities for the coming years.

In 2021, the UK Government is moving to further reduce its aid budget from 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5%. Analysis of estimated funding between 2019 and 2022 compared to 2015 to 2018, indicates that gender equality focused programming is severely affected, and women and girls will suffer disproportionately from reductions in funding to critical sectors. The Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) said these changes are the result of COVID-19’s impact on public finances. ​