More on the Muskoka Initiative
As ONE’s Kimberley Hunter reported from Toronto this weekend, on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister and G8 host Stephen Harper announced that the G8 would be contributing an additional $5 billion towards maternal, newborn and child health in developing countries over the next five years. Other donors – like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Norway, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Spain and Switzerland – pledged $2.3 billion, bringing the total up to $7.3 billion. While this is a welcome increase, it still falls far short of the $30 billion in additional funding that experts estimate is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals on maternal and child health by 2015.
More details on the so-called “Muskoka Initiative” were revealed with the release of the official G8 communiqué on Saturday, which included an annex outlining the initiative. Here at ONE, we were pleased to see that the initiative embraces some critical principles for long-term sustainability and effectiveness, like support for country-led national health plans and increased coherence through coordination and harmonization. Although there is a strong focus on outcomes (with an estimate from the World Health Organization and the World Bank that pledged funds will prevent the deaths of 1.3 million children and 64,000 mothers over the next five years), it stops short of setting out clear targets to meet these goals, such as supporting the training of an additional 3.5 million health care workers by 2015, a critical input to strengthening the health care that mothers and children need, especially during pregnancy, labor and the first five years of life, and an issue that 61,000 ONE members urged the G8 to support.
Moreover, in a year when G8 accountability was high on the summit agenda, the lack of clarity around individual country pledges is extremely disappointing. Although the communiqué states that the G8 will release the methodology used to define each country’s commitment and baselines, without this info it’s not clear which countries are truly delivering additional funding and which are using creative counting and hiding behind the G8’s collective commitment. It is critical that these details be made available, not only so advocates can chart the delivery of them, but also so governments and citizens in developing countries can start planning for them and make sure that the funds promised lead to lasting results for mother and children.
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June 28, 2010 at 7:30 pm
The Muskoka Initiative is very vital to meet the true commitment and the work towards bettering mothers, newborns, and children in the developing world.
June 28, 2010 at 9:17 pm
The Muskoka Initiative will make this planet a more responsible, humane place! Please continue to support it!
June 29, 2010 at 1:23 am
The Muskoka Initiative will be an Excellent Step For Betterment. kindly support It.
June 29, 2010 at 5:19 am
comment : we all have to support Muskoka’s initiative
June 29, 2010 at 5:24 am
It is a good start to meet the target MDG4&5,even if late to recognize the problem & take concrete measures.
July 1, 2010 at 4:03 am
We are an organization in kenya -Africa and deal with lots of programs on maternal health for young mothers and girls in the community. We really appreciate your efforts. We will be greatful if this can be extended to africa where the problem is enourmous thanks
Morris Kamundi
Executive Director- Kilele foundation Kenya
July 23, 2010 at 10:45 am
Although a focus on maternal and child health is important and necessary, there are some serious shortcomings to this Initiative.
The G8 Communique contains only a vague reference to “enabl[ing] access to modern methods of family planning by an additional 12 million couples”.
Although this represents a more tangible commitment to family planning services than was initially offered by the Harper government, more detail is required. Every year, 70 000 women die from unsafe abortions (14% of maternal deaths). For this reason, funding for SAFE abortion services is necessary in any maternal health plan.
In 2007, ten African leaders called for legislation on safe abortion on the continent. Approximately 36,000 women in Africa die from unsafe abortions every year — mostly because safe abortion is unavailable to them.
The Communique does not specify whether abortion will be included, and does not offer any specifics about how this contraception will be offered. The Harper government has made drastic cuts in funding to the International Planned Parenthood Federation…now it starts preaching about maternal health? It claims to support the well-being of women and children after eliminating the plan for a multi-million dollar childcare plan put forward by its LIberal predecessors? What a contradiction.
January 3, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Critical to maternal/child health is reasonable family planning…Access to safe/inexpensive birth control/disease prevention methods (condoms?). All well and good to provide sanitation, and better nutrition. But without birth control of some sort, you are condemning families to having too many children to support in the long run.