2010 Emerges as Historic Year of Decisive Action to Save

 

More Than 10 Million Women, Children by 2015

 

Improving Maternal, Child Health One of Best Possible

Investments, Declares United Nations Secretary-General at Conference

WASHINGTON, D.C., 7 June — Global momentum is growing in the fight to save the lives of 10 million women and children every year by 2015, in an effort spearheaded by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8), the Group of 20 (G-20), Governments from every region of the world, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, philanthropy and United Nations entities are building support for a Joint Action Plan led by the Secretary-General to accelerate progress to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and ensure that investments made in women’s and children’s health are well spent.  A new accountability framework will ensure partners make and track commitments in finance, service delivery and policy development.

“When we work together, we succeed,” the United Nations Secretary-General said in his opening address today at the Women Deliver 2010 Conference in Washington, D.C., the largest ever conference on maternal health, which brings together 3,500 participants from 140 countries.  (See Press Release SG/SM/12939.)  “History will show that 2010 was a year of new, decisive action — a year when the world decided that no woman should die giving life and no child should die when we know how to save them,” he added.

“We truly are at a tipping point,” says Jill Sheffield, President of Women Deliver.  “The first Women Deliver Conference in 2007 started a movement, and we now see a convergence of elements and interests.  This interest has to be turned into action.  The time is right.  The good news is that in a world of difficult problems, here is a major challenge we can meet.”

The Secretary-General is seeking new commitments from all sectors against the needs identified in the Joint Action Plan, to be made in the run-up to and during the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit set for New York in September.

Mothers’ and Children’s Lives Inextricably Linked to Millennium Goals

Opening the plenary of the Conference, Secretary-General Ban said:  “Improvements for women, children and girls create a positive ripple effect, accelerating progress in all of our development goals.”  Combating AIDS, TB and malaria was singled out as a key part of improving survival rates for vulnerable women and children.

Maternal, Child Health Key to Building Peaceful, Productive Societies

“It pays to invest in women’s reproductive health and rights,” said Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).  “It’s not only the right thing to do; it is also smart economics.  Women deliver enormous social and economic benefits for their families, communities and nations,” she pointed out.

• Maternal and newborn mortality alone causes global productivity losses of $15 billion annually.  Investing in children’s health creates the foundation for a more productive future workforce.

• Vaccination in poor countries means children grow up healthier, do better at school and are, therefore, more productive as adults.  The impact of vaccination is potentially as large as or larger than returns on basic education.

“If women are denied a chance to develop their full human potential, is society as a whole really healthy?” asked Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).  “What does this say about the state of social progress in the twenty-first century?  It’s time to pay girls and women back, to make sure that they get the care and support they need,” she said.

Solutions that Work

“The solutions that save the lives of women and children are well-known and cost-effective,” said Flavia Bustreo, Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, an alliance of more than 300 members that is facilitating the development of the Joint Action Plan.

Successful approaches that can be implemented globally include:

• Providing access to both family planning and maternal and newborn care to all women in need, in developing countries, costs $4.50 per capita per year, and can save 70 per cent of women’s lives and 44 per cent of newborn lives currently lost.

• Increased coverage of three vaccines — pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), rotavirus vaccine (Rota), and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine — will prevent 1.5 million deaths in children under 5 years old.

Media Contacts

For more information, please contact Lyndon Haviland, mobile:  860 575 7691, e-mail: Lyndon@Haviland.net; and David Smith, mobile:  202 486 5384, e-mail:  dsmith@unicwash.org.

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For information media • not an official record