A Gift for Children on Mother’s Day

May 9th, 2008 1:23 PM EST
By ONE.Partners

From Liz Creel of the US Coalition for Child Survival

This Mother’s Day, along with the usual flowers and brunch in bed, think about how the recent rise in global food prices makes even the simple things in life luxuries for the world’s poor. This jump in prices threatens over 35 million of the world’s children - 10 percent under the age of 5 - putting them at even greater risk of malnutrition. According to the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, prices have risen more than 80 percent over the last three years with the price tag for some staples like rice jumping a staggering 141 percent since January.

The present crisis brings me back to a visit that I took to Ethiopia nearly 5 years ago. I was working with a group of women’s health activists from various countries in East Africa and we visited a CARE project in the southern part of the Afar region. More than 300 miles away, in the town of Gode in the Ogaden region (near the border of Somalia), about 1.3 million people were starving as a result of three consecutive years of drought. Many of those most affected were children under the age of 5, who were suffering from diseases related to severe malnutrition - pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles. Fortunately, emergency aid helped save countless lives.

Despite recent declines in child mortality, nearly 27,000 children still die every day from largely preventable and treatable causes like pneumonia, diarrhea, and complications during the first day to year of life. Malnutrition is at the root of half of these deaths. When food prices rise, this situation becomes even more desperate. Already the United Nations, the U.S. and other governments, the private sector, and civil society worldwide are taking steps to help by increasing emergency food aid and working to enact longer-term solutions to bring down energy prices, make greater investments in agriculture and increase demand, and address climate change.

Changing policy, utilizing best practices in public health, assuring clean water, sanitation, and nutrition for the world’s children can only be accomplished through enhanced coordination and accountability of child survival health programs. The Global Child Survival Act of 2007 will ensure that all aspects of government aid like food assistance, vaccination delivery, and basic health care services are better coordinated.

Today mark Mother’s Day with the best gift of all – life for the world’s children. Write your member of Congress and ask them to support the Global Child Survival Act. The legislation would streamline the delivery of antibiotics, vitamin A supplements, and vaccines while improving accountability and coordination. It would also provide funds to help save the lives of as many as two-thirds of all children who die in Ethiopia and around the world, many of them from malnutrition or conditions aggravated by undernourishment.

-Liz Creel, US Coalition for Child Survival

TAGS: Global Child Survival Act, Maternal and Child Health, NGO Partner, US Coalition for Child Survival, Water and Sanitation