Alexander De Croo for one year She Decides in Senegal
Exactly one year ago, our country organized the international She Decides conference in Brussels to support the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Alexander De Croo, one of the initiators of She Decides, travelled with Prime Minister Charles Michel to Senegal for the first anniversary.
In Fass, one of the boroughs of the Senegal capital of Dakar, Alexander De Croo took part in a session about sexual education to inform young girls about the various possibilities of family planning.
“You feel that young girls want to take charge more and more of their own future, but a few basic criteria are required for this. Access to family planning and basic health care for girls are of course obvious issues”, says Minister De Croo.
Fass is a densely populated poor district, surrounded by richer residential areas, with a great deal of young people, unemployment, delinquency, and many school leavers. The district is close to the Université de Dakar and other universities, schools and hospitals.
Various organizations, ranging from the UN Population Fund UNFPA and UNICEF to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Health Initiative, are working together on better access to health care, in particular family planning, and care for mother and child.
Attention is also paid to education for girls, encouraging entrepreneurship and the empowerment of women. These are just a few of the areas which form the main focus of She Decides which in one year has raised more than 450 million US dollars in order to improve the sexual and reproductive rights and health of girls and women.
Signing new agreement
In Senegal, Minister De Croo signed a new agreement which further elaborates the collaboration between Belgium and Senegal for the next five years. This concerns promoting a local and sustainable entrepreneurship, sexual and reproductive rights, and education. For this new agreement, the Belgian government has set aside a budget of 40 million Euro, 13 million less than for the previous programme which ran from 2010 to 2015. Senegal has been a development partner of Belgium since 1968, but in recent years the relationship has evolved into a partnership where trade plays a key role.
“Senegal is progressing considerably in various areas, as a result of which the collaboration is evolving from development aid to a partnership, an exchange of experiences. We no longer find ourselves in a North-South perspective, whereby the North solves the problems of the South”, says Minister De Croo.
