G8 Pledges For Maternal, Child Health Efforts Fall Short Of $10B Goal

Main Category: Aid / Disasters
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 29 Jun 2010 - 1:00 PDT

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At a G8 summit in Toronto, developed nations and other donors pledged $7.3 billion toward a global maternal and child health initiative, eliciting disappointment from aid groups that had hoped for a $10 billion commitment, the Washington Post reports.

Officials framed Canada's Muskoka Initiative -- named for the resort where the G8 leaders gathered -- as an effort to focus on core international development goals. The outcome "highlighted how world economic dynamics have made a sudden lurch toward less government spending," according to the Post (Schneider/Branigin, Washington Post, 6/26).

Canada pledged $1.1 billion in addition to the $1.75 billion country officials had already committed, the Toronto Star reports. The U.S. said it would contribute $1.35 billion over two years, while Japan committed $500 million over five years. An additional $2.3 billion over five years will come from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and various nations -- the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and South Korea.

Canadian officials said the nation's spending will focus on providing prenatal care and safe delivery services, improving maternal and infant nutrition, and launching "high-impact, cost-effective interventions" to address the leading cause of mortality before age five. The spending "will be fully integrated into country-led plans on maternal, newborn and child health," a background document said. Eighty percent of Canada's overall spending will targeting sub-Saharan countries (MacCharles, Toronto Star, 6/26).

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper contended that countries are more likely to fulfill modest commitments. Five years ago, leaders promised to increase development assistance by $50 billion, but they have provided only half that amount to date.

Aid groups said the commitments are inadequate (Washington Post, 6/26). G8 leaders are "effectively passing the buck to the United Nations to deal with in September, when they address all of the Millennium Development Goals," the global advocacy group ONE said in a statement.

"Even when their economies were booming over the last 10 years, they let women and children down," Rosemary Mccarney of Plan International Canada said, adding, "[T]o plead economic problems today is a bit shallow" (Toronto Star, 6/26).

The Nation Opinion Piece Calls for U.S. Leadership on Abortion

The G8 summit gave President Obama an "opportunity to speak out" about the importance of abortion access to successful global health efforts, Jessica Arons and Shira Saperstein -- both of the Center for American Progress -- write in The Nation.

In the months leading up to the summit, Harper "pointedly excluded both abortion and contraception from the effort," which " provoked a strong rebuke" from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, they continue. In March, Clinton said, "You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion." Arons and Saperstein write that Harper "refused to compromise on abortion, echoing the 'no public funding for abortion' mantra."

Compared with Clinton, Obama "has been relatively silent" about championing access to abortion care, but "their positions are not as inconsistent as they may appear at first blush," Arons and Saperstein argue. They add that "in both the international and domestic context, Obama has drawn a distinction between direct and indirect funding" for abortion care.

"Ideally, the administration would recognize that the U.S. and its partners cannot achieve maternal and child health goals without being willing to directly fund safe abortion services," they write. "But at the very least, the president can stand solidly behind Clinton's statement and reaffirm that women need to have access to safe and legal abortion both because it is a basic human right and because it is a necessary component of a comprehensive and effective approach to achieving maternal and child wellbeing," they continue, concluding that Clinton "has set the stage for President Obama to take this leading role" (Arons/Saperstein, The Nation, 6/25).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

© 2010 National Partnership for Women & Families. All rights reserved.

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