Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis today announced a $10 million contribution to the project, conducted in partnership with Dutch cooperation. The goal of this initiative is to complete construction of new health centres and rehabilitation of existing ones, and to supply medical equipment.
This project will strengthen the healthcare system in southern Mali, which is a country of focus for Canadian international development assistance, improving its ability to respond to the needs of women and children. This will improve maternal, newborn and child health in the long term. Managed by the local communities, these health centres will also provide social stability to this part of the country.
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 that it would maintain its commitment to provide $1.75 billion during the same period to programs designed to improve maternal, newborn and child health, for 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 in order to address the major health challenges facing women and children. 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.
Canada is on track for meeting its Muskoka commitment, with 80% 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. Canada is focusing its bilateral efforts on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Southern Sudan and Tanzania, which are all countries with a high maternal and child mortality rate. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the GAVI Alliance, UNICEF and the World Health Organization are among Canada’s multilateral and international partners.
