G8 set to develop women and children’s health initiative
On 26 April, G8 development ministers will be meeting in Halifax, Canada, to develop an action plan on maternal, newborn and child health. This builds on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s pledge in January that as president of the G8 in 2010, Canada will use this year’s summit to “champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world’s poorest regions.”
For those of us working to fight global poverty, this announcement came as welcome news. Despite improvements in global health in recent years, progress on maternal and child health is still far from where it should be. More than 300,000 mothers still die a year during pregnancy and childbirth and nearly 9 million children die before their 5th birthday.
Yet most of these deaths are the result of preventable and treatable causes. New support for cost-effective, proven interventions could make a dramatic impact on maternal, newborn and child health.
In the past, the G8 has acknowledged the urgent need in maternal and child health along with some of the solutions, but has made few concrete commitments on how it will help African countries make improvements. With Canada’s leadership and public commitment to this issue, 2010 can be the year when the G8 finally takes action.
It’s also an important time for these issues to be highlighted. When African Heads of State meet at the African Union Summit in July they will focus on maternal and child health. In September all global leaders will meet in New York to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with MDGs on maternal and child health being some of the most off-track, a robust plan from the G8 on this issue could galvanise the international community.
Ahead of the meeting of G8 development ministers in Halifax, ONE is outlining its recommendations to the G8. In order to be effective and to make a real difference in the lives of families in the world’s poorest regions, the G8‘s action strategy should:
- Be results-oriented - Canada and other G8 countries should commit to an action plan that combines high-impact interventions and long-term investments in local capacity with the ultimate goal of training 1 million health care workers in countries with a high burden of maternal and child deaths. They should work towards universal access to skilled birth attendants, universal access to bed nets, vaccination packages (including pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines) and anti-malarial drugs, and support comprehensive education campaigns about pregnancy to women of child bearing age. Finally, any initiative should have the goal of eliminating mother-to-children transmission of HIV by 2015.
- Mobilize new resources - Canada and other G8 countries should double bilateral Overseas Development Assistance to maternal, newborn and child health from approximately USD $4 billion in 2010 to USD $8 billion by 2013. This funding should be channelled through existing bilateral initiatives or new multilateral approaches in the future, such as an expanded Global Fund. In addition, the G8 should commit to full replenishment of multilateral organizations already working to improve maternal and child health such as GAVI (Global Alliance of Vaccines and Immunizations), the Global Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank.
- Emphasise integration, coordination and country ownership – In addition to new resources, Canada and other G8 countries should also commit to improving the quality and effectiveness of maternal and child health efforts through a commitment to the principles of country ownership, integration and coordination. The G8 and other donors should commit to working with developing countries to devise technically sound national health plans through their internal processes and mechanisms like the International Health Partnership and the private sector to coordinate support and mobilise resources. The G8 should also support and encourage efforts by developing country governments to transparently mobilise domestic resources for improving maternal, newborn and child health and the expansion of affordable access to quality care.
- Ensure accountability based on the TRACK principles – Canada and other G8 countries should use this initiative to pilot a robust G8 focus on accountability in line with the accountability matrix and the TRACK principles, which calls for new promises to be Transparent, Results-orients and Accountable, while also articulating any Conditionalities and mapping out a strategy to ensure that will be Kept.
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25/04/2010 at 5:07 pm
Have I missed it or is your position on health for mother’s omitting the need of women to adequate birth control and family planning?
If so, you may be too vanilla for me. I’m well aware of bully boy bush and his determination to tie aid to products that favour his sick version of religion. I am not in solidarity with anyone who agrees with such a policy…and so would like to ask you a question. If you were a mother in a third world country, would access to birthcontrol, and safe abortion not be rather high on your list of survival necessities…for yourself and your children?
For me the answer seems obvious.
04/05/2010 at 12:12 pm
I agree with Mary, I had friends who refused to sign the petition for that exact reason and when I go on your website looking for support for this fundamental women’s health need, there is no mention of it at all which is very disappointing. I signed your petition but it seems to me that it addresses only half of the issue.
04/05/2010 at 4:56 pm
to ONE: Can you please explain to all of us what your actual position on women’s Reproductive Health Initiatives that you want to have included in the G8 plan for Mat-Child Health. As you well know, these cannot be left out, & I can see how some of your action strategy points COULD include these. But since they are not specifically spelled out & since you are dealing with Canada as it is being governed today, with a right-wing Prime Minister who does not support women’s rights in general – please specifically address this essential issue for us. We need to know where ONE stands on this. Thanks!
05/05/2010 at 12:04 am
I agree with the above comments from Mary Nokelby, J Norman and CanNurse regarding access to birth control and abortion as essential parts of any Reproductive Health Plan iniatives. I am not prepared to support any reproductive health initiatives that do not include that access and full financial support for it. Harper does not represent the will of the country on this, as well as many other issues. Please, as CanNurse requests, address this issue specifically and in detail. Otherwise I will withdraw my support.
10/05/2010 at 5:41 pm
I would like and answer too because I am on the opposite side of the spectrim in thinking abortion is wrong. What is your stand on funding for abortions in third world countries and are you supportive or against it?
13/05/2010 at 9:07 pm
I am the Coordinator of Canada’s national pro-choice group, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.
This petition has excellent points and goals, but I’m very disappointed that it makes no mention of the critical need to fund family planning and safe abortion in this year’s G8 initiative. As you should know, the Conservative Canadian government has recently announced its refusal to include funding for safe abortion in its G8 maternal/child initiative, and there is as yet no firm promise that even family planning will be funded.
Canadian pro-choice and women’s groups are mobilizing and lobbying heavily to urge the Canadian government to include such funding. (For example, we have our own petition, just started on Tuesday, and it already has over 1000 signatures: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/safe-abortion.html)
A “fait-accompli” petition with 9,000 signatures that makes NO MENTION of family planning or safe abortion undermines the work we are trying to do here, in my opinion. The ideological stance of the Canadian government is a huge political issue in Canada that must be addressed. But you have NOT addressed it, which implies that you support the government position, or don’t think family planning and safe abortion are important issues. This simply validates the government position and gives it further encouragement that they don’t need to fund family planning and safe abortion.
20/09/2010 at 8:40 pm
I am disappointed that you all feel that abortion is a necessity for any mother, but especially ones in third world countries.
Mothers in Africa, for example, lose so many children to other diseases and war… the last thing they want is to give up another child. Instead of spending money on abortion, which is a societal failure to women, urge pharmaceutical companies and government to give mothers real solutions, like proper medical treatment so that they can keep their children. Did you know that Pfizer and other big medical companies refuse to put funding into HIV/AIDS research, for example, because they feel that most people who contract the disease are poor and thus cannot pay for treatment? This is wrong, and if these companies changed their ways, there would be no need for the cheap way out – abortion. We have the technology to serve women better. We need to choose that instead of a damaging treatment like abortion.
20/12/2010 at 12:53 am
Women in impoverished regions of the world need adequate health care, for their health as well as their child’s health, not more access to abortion. I completely agree with Harper’s initiative in advancing medical care and access to contraception, and excluding abortion. With proper medication/treatments and education on contraception, abortion wouldn’t need to be a main concern. International Planned Parenthood receives millions upon millions of dollars each year (including several millions from Canada), I think there’s been enough funding put into abortion, yet there’s no major improvement in these areas. Perhaps if all this funding went into treatments, nourishment and care for the mother and her children, we wouldn’t have all these women dying. Abortion is not health care for children if it’s killing them. And if most of the funding goes into abortion clinics, then not enough will go into other services. And mothers who actually want to keep their child won’t have the proper resources to do so. Save both the mother and the child – give them clean drinking water, medication/treatment, access to contraception (abortion is NOT contraception) and nourishment.
26/07/2011 at 10:18 pm
Not one word anywhere about access to clean water (to prevent diarrhea) and good nutrition (to prevent or minimize symptoms resulting from the immune system becoming weak under stress due to dirty water and first-time exposure to certain germs.) The situation and response in Haiti proved that access to clean water was cheaper and more effective at controlling many disease, which result from dirty water and lack of good public hygiene protocols.
Interesting to note: United States, last time I read, was ranked about 42nd as far as child mortality up to the age of 5. I’d like to know what is this great knowlege we have to share with these other folks when we can’t even seem to handle the situation ourselves. And don’t bother saying vaccines are the answer, as we have one of the highest vaccination rates, with the most doses, for the most diseases, but our rank is lower than 41 other countries. Shouldn’t the top 5 or 10 countries be the ones leading this charge against childhood mortality? Countries NOT in the top 10 for the lowest childhood mortality numbers: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand.