International

SP member of Parliament Harry van Bommel has asked the Minister for Development Co-operation to give special attention to the serious shortage of condoms in developing countries, a shortage connected to the ending of US government aid to organsations which give advice on birth control and abortion. Mr Van Bommel wants to know whether the minister supports moves by Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown to give the issue prominence on the agenda of the UN summit on the Millennium Goals scheduled for this September.

The SP strongly believes that the Netherlands must take concrete measures to increase the availability of condoms to people in poor countries, a matter of great importance both in relation to birth control and to the fight against HIV/Aids. Van Bommel has asked the minister whether the government has heeded his call of last June to offer financial support to African clinics who have fallen victim to the US ban.

He is also concerned to know whether the government accepts that it must give serious consideration to the question as to whether a US decision to withhold finance to the United Nations Population Fund should put an end to Dutch-American co-operation around the struggle against HIV-Aids.