REACH and its partners coordinate and guide government-led efforts to scale-up effective interventions to link child undernutrition, food availability and access, child and maternal care, and health in a sustainable package. Results include: raised awareness about undernutrition and finding solutions to this challenge; improved national nutrition policies and programs; and improved capacity to manage, oversee and evaluate nutrition programs.
Canada is the leading supporter of this program, providing funding for eight of the 13 countries where REACH works toward securing the future of children and women. These eight countries include Bangladesh, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. REACH also works in Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Mauritania, and Niger.
This initiative is also helping support the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement launched in 2010. SUN brings together governments, the United Nations, private sector and civil society organizations, and development partners to fight undernutrition. SUN focuses on implementing evidence-based nutrition interventions, including efforts to improve access to vitamin A, iron, zinc and other critical nutrients, in addition to working at the country level to improve nutrition planning.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hosting Saving Every Woman Every Child: Within Arm's Reach, an international Summit that will shape the future of Child and Maternal Health collaborations in Canada and around the world, from May 28-30, 2014, in Toronto.
The Summit will build on Canada's leadership and chart the way forward for the next phase of coordinated global efforts on maternal, newborn and child health. Participants at the Summit will include Canadian and international experts, representing civil society, business, academia, developed and developing countries, international organizations and global foundations on maternal, newborn and child health.
The Summit will focus on the following three themes:
- Delivering Results for Mothers and Children: Determining how, collectively, we have successfully delivered results and exploring how innovative technology and operating models are saving lives.
- Doing More Together Globally: Pushing new technologies and global partnerships to improve women's and children's health.
- Real Action for Women's and Children's Health: Identifying concrete steps that Canada and its partners will take to ensure that mortality rates drop, nutrition improves and more children live to see their fifth birthday.
The themes for the Summit were developed in consultation with key Canadian stakeholders
In June 2010, Canada led G-8 and non G-8 leaders to commit $7.3 billion, mobilizing global action to reduce maternal and infant mortality and improve the health of mothers and children in the world's poorest countries, through the Muskoka Initiative.
As part of the Muskoka Initiative, Canada committed to providing $1.1 billion in new funding between 2010 and 2015 to help women and children in the world's poorest countries. Canada also announced it would maintain the ongoing spending of $1.75 billion in maternal, newborn and child health programming during the same period, resulting in a total commitment of $2.85 billion.
The Muskoka Initiative succeeded in sparking international attention. In September 2010, during the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched Every Woman, Every Child, a global movement mobilizing the resources of governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society aimed at helping the world meet Millennium Development Goals #4 and #5 – namely, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health.. The goal is to save 16 million lives by 2015.
In September 2013, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, together with Jakaya Kikwete, President of the Republic of Tanzania, co-hosted a UN event entitled Women's and Children's Health: The Unfinished Agenda of the Millennium Development Goals. The event, organized in support of the Every Woman Every Child initiative, examined ways to accelerate progress on improving maternal, newborn and child health and, reducing the number of preventable deaths. President Kikwete will also be in attendance at the Summit in Toronto.
Canada is on track to meeting its Muskoka commitment, with 80 percent of the funding already disbursed. Under the Muskoka Initiative Partnership Program, Canada supported the efforts of 28 Canadian organizations to reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality over three years in Haiti, Africa and Asia. Bilateral efforts are focused in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan and Tanzania, where maternal and child mortality rates are high; multilateral and global partners include the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the GAVI Alliance, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization.
