Ireland

The development and foreign policy priorities of Ireland strongly align with the work and mandate of UNFPA. Ireland’s policy for international development names gender equality and strengthening governance to realise human rights as two of four overarching policy priorities. The policy commits to intensifying work in intervention clusters on protection and people, including health and education action. Ireland’s policy focus aligns strongly with UNFPA’s work on ending maternal and infant mortality, promoting universal access to quality maternal and reproductive health care, supporting safe motherhood, promoting HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, and ending harmful practices against women and girls including gender-based violence and female genital mutilation.  UNFPA’s humanitarian work aligns with the Government of Ireland’s policy priority on reducing humanitarian need and its focus on human rights and fragile contexts.

Specific areas of collaboration between the Government of Ireland and UNFPA include: Gender-based violence prevention and response; support for sexual and reproductive health; promotion of HIV prevention; supporting population and housing censuses; reduction of teenage pregnancy; abandonment of female genital mutilation; contributions to UNFPA Supplies Programme to improve the health and well-being of women and girls everywhere and the Maternal Health Thematic Fund, which provides midwifery training, obstetric fistula repair surgeries and other activities to strengthen maternal health services; and support to the organisation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)+25 event in Nairobi and the full implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action.