UN JOINS IN NEW GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO SLASH MATERNAL AND CHILD MORTALITY

New York, Sep 12 2005 10:00AM
The world’s leading maternal, newborn and child health professionals formally joined forces for the first time today in a United Nations-backed initiative to tackle a crisis that each year sees more than 500,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth and nearly 11 million children succumb to mostly preventable diseases.

The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, a milestone in a growing global focus on the health of women and children, aims to boost efforts to achieve two of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - slashing by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five and cutting by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio, both by 2015.

“If the world is to meet the goals of reducing maternal and under-five mortality by 2015, only a focused, coordinated effort can bring women, newborns and children the health care they need during pregnancy, delivery, the early weeks of life and in childhood,” UN World Health Organization (WHO) Lee Jong-wook said.

“By working with countries to increase access to existing health care solutions, this Partnership has the potential to transform millions of lives and make critical progress,” he added.

The Partnership unites developing and donor countries, UN agencies, professional associatMations, academic and research institutions, foundations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to intensify and harmonize national, regional and global progress towards the two MDGs.

It is a merger of three existing collaborations focused on maternal, newborn and child health and will be hosted by the Geneva-based WHO.

While some countries have made progress, at current rates the world is not on track to achieve the two MDGs, which are part of a programme adopted by the UN Millennium Summit of 2000 to slash a host of socioeconomic ills, such as extreme poverty and hunger, all by 2015.

The Partnership will begin immediately to work with national leaders on delivering the much-advocated ‘continuum of care’ approach to countries. In recent publications including the WHO's World Health Report 2005, leading global health experts agree that progress begins when a women's health needs are addressed at the same time as her child's.
2005-09-12 00:00:00.000