News
High-level Meeting at the UN Raises Commitments and Attention to the Survival of Mothers and Children
- 29 September 2008
United Nations-- In spite of financial storms wreaking havoc on the global economy and drawing wide media coverage last week, the High-level meeting on the Millennium Development Goals last week was a success for the MDGs broadly and for UNFPA’s work on maternal health. It exceeded expectations in terms of funds raised and also gained wide attention.
At the meeting and related side events, governments, foundations, businesses and civil society groups rallied around the call to slash poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. "We have full commitment from many countries in pledges to help the world's poor, around the $16 billion mark,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
About $2 billion of that was pledged to the closely connected MDGs 4 and 5, to improve child survival and maternal health. Based on the pledges, that figure would rise to $7 billion by 2015. In addition, a Global Campaign for Health aims to mobilize an extra $30 billion by 2015, including funds to train over one million health workers.
A special side event, “Commitment to Progress for Mothers, Newborns and Children”, drew representatives of more than 100 governments and international organizations, many of them bringing pledges of support for MDGs 4 and 5. Executive leaders of four key agencies, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, Unicef, WHO and the World Bank, issued a joint statement of commitment to progress.
The summit, and the issues it tackled, garnered widespread coverage in articles by Reuters, BBC, and Time Magazine, among many others. In the BBC article, Thoraya A Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, was quoted extensively as she drew pointed comparisons between the relatively modest sums it would take to safeguard women’s health compared to military spending and financial bailouts.
"It would cost the world $6 billion to stop women dying during childbirth, less than the amount spent in a day and a half on the military, so you can see how a little investment could help to transform women's lives,” said Ms. Obaid. “Why is it possible to find $700 billion to help save the private sector on Wall Street and not find the money that is needed to save women from dying? The issue becomes about where the priorities are."
Time Magazine gave extensive coverage to the tragedy of maternal death, including a heartbreaking photo essay depicting the death of a woman and the impact of her loss on those left behind.
