The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a new grant worth $1.5 billion over the next five years to support family planning, maternal and newborn health in a new pledge to complement previous commitments to reduce the global burden of disease. The announcement was made by Melinda Gates, co-chair and co-founder of the foundation at the second Women Deliver conference in Washington DC.
The conference has drawn over 3,500 stakeholders in women and children's health from all over the world to share lessons on reducing maternal death, the fifth of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty globally by 2015. Five years to the deadline, reducing maternal deaths is the indicator with the least progress.
"The world knows how to save women but has not tried hard enough. Women are treated like they are not important," Melinda said. She noted that even though new birth is a promise for a better future, far too many women were terrified of giving birth. "I'm making women and child health a personal priority. I will call on government leaders in the developed world to commit resources, make policies and implement them," she said.
Worldwide over 350,000 women die due to preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth every year and 20 times more suffer lifetime debilitating injuries. The main causes are bleeding, infections, pregnancy-related hypertension, abortion and obstructed labour.
All these are preventable but despite advancement and availability of technology and medical interventions to save mothers and newborns, maternal death has continued because of a belief that it is inevitable for mothers and children to die. Ninety-nine per cent of the deaths are in the developing countries of Asia and Africa.
Speaking at the same event, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon announced a global joint action plan for women's and children's health he has initiated to build on and revitalise existing strategies and commitments to achieve the MDGs by 2015.
"Women are the glue that holds our societies, nations together. Mothers work hard but too often the world lets them down," Ki-Moon said.
In a keynote address to open the Women Deliver 2010 conference, Ki-Moon said 10 years in the millennium was the right time to take stock of the achievements. He urged that 2010 be a turning point in women health and called on participants to end the silence on maternal death.
"We know what works but hundreds of women still die from childbirth every year. If we act now and act together we can deliver for women," he said.
He noted that the piece-meal approach of tackling one problem at a time had been tried but does not work. He said joint action as seen in the fight against HIV and malaria worked better.
In a pre-recorded message to the conference, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said women represented the greatest opportunity for progress in this century. She noted that if the potential of women is fully developed, everyone benefits.Clinton reiterated the need to improve maternal and reproductive health if this was to be done.
She said through the global health initiative, a $63b proposal to help countries strengthen health systems by focusing on women and children's health, the US government had elevated the issue of women's health in their development work. If the rhetoric at the Women Deliver 2010 convention in Washington DC converts into action, we are about to see a paradigm shift in how healthcare services are delivered in most of the developing countries.
Participants are calling for a focus on women and children and an investment in their health as a means of reducing poverty and fast tracking the achievement of the MDGs by 2015. Upcoming government leaders' meetings like the AU summit in July and the G8 summit in Canada in September will focus on maternal health.