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FCI advocates for maternal health at G8/G20 Summits
During the last week in June 2010, Canada hosted the G8 and G20 Summits, bringing together the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations to tackle pressing global issues. In the months leading up to the meetings, Canada declared that maternal and child health would be a central focus of the G8 agenda. FCI was one of the few international health NGOs that was on the scene in Toronto for these historic meetings, culminating months of work, with advocacy partners from around the world, to ensure that this would be more than just a symbolic step — that the G8’s discussion would lead to concrete financial commitments, and that governments are held accountable for delivering on these commitments and saving women’s and children’s lives. Amy Boldosser, senior advocacy officer, kept colleagues abreast of developments throughout the weekend on Twitter and Facebook, blogged on RH Reality Check, and provided this summary of the summits’ results:
The G8 and G20 Summits wrapped up after a tumultuous weekend. The protestors clashing with police got all the press but there were important developments for maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, and reproductive health as well. The G8 released the details of its Muskoka Initiative for Maternal and Child Health on Saturday, a five-year, $7.3 billion package for improving maternal, newborn, and child health and increasing access to reproductive health. The G8 countries have pledged $5 billion of new money over the next 5 years, and an additional $2.3 billion has been committed by non-G8 member states and foundations including the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the Gates Foundation, and the United Nations Foundation. The communiqué notes that the G8 countries “fully expect” to mobilize more than $10 billion between 2010 and 2015, but doesn’t provide details on where that extra money might come from.
The G8 members call this “a comprehensive and integrated approach to accelerate progress towards MDGs 4 and 5 that will significantly reduce the number of maternal, newborn and under five child deaths in developing countries.” The G8 is working with partners to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 with a particular focus on MDGs 4 (Reduce by two-thirds the under-5 mortality rate by 2015) and MDG 5 (Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio by AND achieve universal access to reproductive health). MDG 5 is farthest from being achieved by 2015, and estimates are that another $20 billion is needed if we hope to reach those targets for reduction in maternal and child mortality and reproductive health access in time. The Muskoka Initiative doesn’t come close to meeting that $20 billion shortfall, but it is a start.
While the funds committed may not have been all we hoped for, there were some pleasant surprises in the communiqué details. The funds will support strengthened country-led national health systems in developing countries and will help them to deliver key interventions along the continuum of care from pre-pregnancy, to pregnancy, to childbirth, to infancy and early childhood. The funds can specifically be used for programs on pre-natal care; attended childbirth; postpartum care; sexual and reproductive health care and services, including voluntary family planning; health education; treatment and prevention of diseases including infectious diseases; prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV; immunizations; basic nutrition and relevant actions in the field of safe drinking water and sanitation. The communiqué for the first time ever commits G8 countries to “promote integration of HIV and sexual and reproductive health, rights and services within the broader context of strengthening health systems.”
The G8’s recognition that there’s a need for money for a range of critical, complementary interventions is important as well. As the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health points out in its statement on the G8, “hemorrhage is the biggest reason why women die after delivery, but with HIV at the root of 20 percent of maternal deaths globally -- and higher in Africa -- it is clear that we must take a wider view of health, as women themselves do.” The communiqué also included a commitment to work towards universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV and AIDS and to continue to support funding the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. G8 governments also express support for strengthening health information systems and sharing of innovations such as using mobile phones to provide health information and task shifting to make better use of scarce health workers. At the G20 Summit, leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies also recognized the role that all governments, including developing country governments, must play in supporting maternal and child health initiatives. While it was disappointing that the G20 did not specifically mention the Muskoka Initiative, it did announce that it is forming a Working Group to examine how it can play a greater role in development issues-a step in the right direction.
So what can be achieved with the money and the political commitments that we did manage to get from the G8 and G20? The communiqué says that this funding will help developing countries to prevent 1.3 million deaths of children under the age of five, prevent 64,000 maternal deaths, and enable access to modern methods of family planning by an additional 12 million couples. Along with the G8’s stated new focus on accountability, the funding targets and promises to monitor progress towards achieving reductions in maternal and child mortality and expanded access to reproductive health services will also give advocates specifics that we can hold the G8 accountable for. Finally, as we move towards the September 2010 UN High-Level Plenary Meeting on the MDGs where governments will be asked to make additional renewed commitments to achieve the MDGs by 2015, this focus on maternal and child health is important. The UN Secretary-General has launched a Joint Action Plan to Improve the Health of Women and Children, and advocates are pressing for the serious financial and political commitments that will be needed to achieve the goals.
The G8 and G20 have helped put maternal and child health on the map at this critical time. But awareness raising and promises are not enough. The protestors on the streets were yelling, “Whose streets? Our streets!” We must take up the call, “Whose lives? Women’s lives!” No woman should have to die giving life. We know what to do to improve maternal and child health. The governments of the G8 and G20 put themselves forward as the richest and most powerful leaders in the world. But that leadership won’t mean anything if they won’t commit to saving women and children’s lives.
FCI launches second French edition of You, Your Life, Your Dreams (Vous, votre vie, vos rêves)
You, Your Life, Your Dreams was developed by FCI to help young people stay healthy and make informed decisions about their sexual lives. Designed for young people and for educators who work with them, this popular and comprehensive handbook was originally conceived in 2000 for use in English-speaking Africa, and has since been translated into four languages (French, Spanish, Dutch, and Swahili) and adapted in versions that address the unique needs and challenges facing adolescents in East Africa, West Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Easy to read and visually attractive, it provides accessible, objective, and urgently-needed information on a broad range of sexual and reproductive health issues.
 This new edition of Vous, votre vie, vos rêves provides young people in Francophone Africa with additional, updated information on issues including female genital mutilation, HIV and AIDS, access to emergency contraception, and gender equity. In partnership with the Academy for Educational Development (AED), a U.S.-based non-profit organization that works globally to improve education, health, civil society, and economic development, it will initially be distributed in 120 middle schools in six regions of Senegal. An electronic version is also available for free download on the FCI website.
The second French edition is being launched seven years after Vous, votre vie, vos rêves was first developed in partnership with DSW, the German Foundation for World Population.
For more information on the French edition, or on other versions of You, Your Life, Your Dreams, please contact fcipubs [at] familycareintl [dot] org.
FCI hosts Latin American women leaders' conference to fight maternal death
On May 27 and 28, 2010 in Lima, Peru, FCI’s Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) program is co-hosting a Regional Conference of Women Leaders, bringing together more than 80 high-level leaders from government, regional and international agencies, and civil society organizations throughout the region. This conference, organized by the Regional Taskforce on Maternal Mortality Reduction (Grupo de Trabajo Regional para la Reducción de la Mortalidad Materna — GTR), will focus on the theme: Maternal death: breaking the silence, adding our voices.
It aims to mobilize political commitment and financial resources for ending the preventable maternal deaths that occur every day in countries throughout Latin American and the Caribbean. The conference agenda will highlight the importance of investing in women as a key engine of social and economic development, and its conclusions will be used to bring a powerful regional perspective to the Women Deliver conference, taking place in Washington, DC on June 7-9.
 The conference also features the inaugural display of an exhibition — Vínculos Vitales/Touched — by photographer Joey O’Loughlin, organized by FCI on behalf of the Andean Plan to Prevent Adolescent Pregnancy, an initiative of the ministries of health of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, in collaboration with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Ibero-American Youth Organization, and the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development. This display of poignant and inspiring images reveals the challenges that teenagers in the Andean region face every day, the difficult choices they make, and the people who are committed to changing their lives and expanding their opportunities. They illuminate the pervasive and multifaceted problem of adolescent pregnancy: one that can only be solved by adults and young people working together. This powerful photographic exhibition will also be displayed at the Women Deliver conference, and can be viewed as an online slideshow.
Community leaders are crucial to increasing use of maternity services
In rural African villages, community leaders — chiefs, religious leaders, women's group leaders, and others — can have a major influence on how local people manage health issues, including pregnancy and childbirth. They also provide an important link between communities and health facilities, and can help mobilize communities to demand better health services. Many such leaders, however, have little if any information about maternal health. Last year, FCI trained over 200 community leaders in three districts in Tanzania to encourage greater use of maternal health services. "If women in our community experience safer pregnancy and childbirth, they will have a healthier family," said one participant. During the training, community leaders developed messages tailored to their unique social and cultural environment to encourage women to seek skilled maternity care, as well as action plans for sharing these messages with members of the community.
In a recent post on the Global Health Council’s blog, Ann Starrs argues that ending maternal death requires not only more funding but change at the community level. “Yes,” she writes, “it is urgently important to build health systems that can provide skilled care, emergency treatment, postpartum care, reproductive health services, and family planning for every woman everywhere. But clean, accessible, professionally-staffed health centers can only save the lives of women who use them… Communities — and the respected, influential local leaders who can be such powerful agents of change at the grassroots level — need the education and empowerment to take ownership of their local health services, to demand and create accountability, and to help change the social and cultural norms that stand between women and the skilled care that they need.” Click here to read more.
FCI research shows primary health facilities are key to increasing skilled care use
In an article published in the September 2009 issue of Social Science & Medicine, FCI presented findings from our work to improve access to skilled maternity care in Burkina Faso, research conducted as part of FCI’s groundbreaking Skilled Care Initiative with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Skilled Care Initiative resulted in a significant increase in women’s use of facility-based maternity care in the intervention district, particularly at lower-level health facilities. Most importantly, large wealth inequities in the use of professional care during childbirth were almost eliminated — among all women, and among women who experienced complications during delivery. FCI’s results, described in “Improving poor women’s access to maternity care: Findings from a primary care intervention in Burkina Faso,” suggest that efforts to upgrade maternity services at primary care facilities may be key for improving poor women’s access to and use of skilled care during childbirth.
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