Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Bill Gates renew the call for focused global political leadership and sustained financial commitments to ensure that maternal, newborn and child health remains a global development priority as the world moves beyond 2015 during a moderated discussion.
Ottawa, Ontario - 25 February 2015
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today met with Bill Gates in Ottawa to discuss how to further leverage the strong leadership that Canada has demonstrated in promoting maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) in order to ensure that it remains a global development priority and a prominent feature of the global post-2015 development agenda. They were joined by Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and Minister for La Francophonie, as well as global health leaders representing Canadian and international organizations that are committed to advancing significant progress and achieving results on MNCH.
While tremendous progress has been made to save the lives of the world’s most vulnerable citizens – women and children – much work remains to be done. To this end, the Prime Minister and Mr. Gates together renewed the call for focused global political leadership and sustained financial commitments to ensure that MNCH remains a central development priority as the world moves beyond 2015.
The Prime Minister also reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to support immunization as a key pillar of Canada’s MNCH strategy by announcing new investments toward improving access to vaccines for mothers and children. These investments are aimed at eradicating polio and eliminating tetanus, as well as providing support to 20 implementation research teams, made up of African and Canadian researchers, who will contribute to improving maternal and child health in Africa.
During a moderated discussion, the Prime Minister and Mr. Gates discussed the unprecedented global progress that has taken place since the establishment of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals in 2000. Fifteen years later, the world stands on the verge of ending the preventable deaths of mothers and children under five within a generation, in large part due to the leadership and commitment of international partners such as the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
