PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER AND BILL GATES RENEW CALL TO ADVANCE GLOBAL MATERNAL, NEWBORN AND CHILD HEALTH PRIORITY

Introduction

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.

Quick Facts

• Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have a long history of successful collaboration in support of international development. In June 2010, under Prime Minister Harper’s leadership, world leaders launched the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, which focused on saving the lives of mothers, newborns and children under the age of five in developing countries.
• During the Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach Summit in May 2014, Canada committed to support MNCH between 2015 and 2020, creating renewed global momentum to advance MNCH as a global priority and prioritized Canada’s commitment to three areas: strengthening of health systems, improving nutrition, and reducing the burden of leading diseases.
• Canada’s commitment aims to tackle emerging challenges, by providing greater emphasis on nutrition and better reaching children in the fragile first month of life, stepping up immunization efforts and building civil registration and vital statistics systems.
• Canada is a proud supporter of immunization programming to ensure that every child has access to important life-saving vaccines. This includes commitments made at the 2013 Global Vaccine Summit towards the eradication of polio, which the polio “endgame strategy” expects to achieve by 2018.
• In May 2014, the Government of Canada also launched the Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program, a partnership between Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, the International Development Research Centre and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
• The lives of more than five million mothers and children have been saved in developing countries since 2010 due in large part to the global effort to improve maternal, newborn and child health.

Quote

“Canada’s top development priority remains eliminating the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children in developing countries. While significant progress has been made, more can and must be done to sustain the momentum and end these preventable deaths within our lifetime. Our Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have been steadfast partners in championing this cause, and remain committed to ensuring that all women and children can live healthy and productive lives. Together, we will continue to call on the international community to renew their commitment and support to ensure our global efforts remain focused on eliminating preventable maternal and child deaths.” – Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Backgrounder

PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER MEETS WITH BILL GATES TO ADVANCE MATERNAL, NEWBORN AND CHILD HEALTH PRIORITY

Today the world stands on the verge of being able to end the preventable deaths of women and children within a generation. This remarkable success story is rooted in the efforts of developing countries, backed by the unwavering commitment of international partners such as the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Building on the accomplishments of the Saving Every Woman, Every Child Summit in Toronto in May 2014, where Canada renewed its commitment to improving the health of mothers and children from 2015 to 2020, there continues to be unprecedented momentum to this global effort. This was witnessed most recently at the successful pledging conference for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, to which the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were key partners. With the Government of Canada’s support, GAVI will be able to immunize an additional 300 million children, preventing up to six million premature deaths.

Canada remains steadfast in its commitment to working with Canadian and international partners, like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, toward the goal of ending the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children under the age of five.

During today’s visit to Ottawa by Bill Gates, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced support for the following three initiatives:

• The Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV Introduction) Initiative ($20 million – 2014/2015) – This initiative will help the World Health Organization strengthen long-term immunity against polio by introducing the injectable inactivated polio vaccine in Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Malawi, and Tanzania, and procure doses that will enable the immunization of 2.45 million children in these countries.
• The Eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Initiative (Up to $2.5 million – 2015/16 and 2016/17) – This initiative will match the contributions of UNICEF Canada and the Kiwanis Foundation of Canada up to $2.5 million over two years in support of the Eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Initiative. It will provide approximately 3.4 million women of reproductive age with three doses of tetanus toxoid vaccine in Chad, Kenya, Pakistan, South Sudan and Sudan.
• The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health Program (up to $20 million – 2014/15 to 2019/20) – This initiative will support the innovative work of 20 implementation research teams made up of Canadian and African researchers in 13 sub-Saharan African countries to help resolve pressing challenges and better meet the primary healthcare needs of mothers, newborns and children in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

Improving the health of mothers, newborns and children around the world is Canada’s top international development priority. It is unacceptable that women and children continue to die from preventable causes, such as a lack of skilled attendance at birth, undernourishment and diets lacking basic vitamins and minerals, or diarrhea from dirty water.

Canada is also committed to addressing emerging challenges, including: reaching children in the fragile first month of life; stepping up immunization efforts; improving nutrition; and building civil registration and vital statistics systems to improve accountability for results and as a passport to a child’s rights.