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29 March 2024

UN launches $40bn drive for women and children

Published
By AFP

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on Wednesday a $40 billion drive to improve the health of women and children, which he said would save millions of lives around the world.

Governments, philanthropists and private groups pledged the cash, giving a spectacular end to the UN summit on eliminating poverty, a campaign that has been badly battered by the international financial crisis.

"We know what works to save women's and children's lives, and we know that women and children are critical to all of the Millennium Development Goals," Ban said.

"Today we are witnessing the kind of leadership we have long needed," he declared ahead of the close of the summit when US President Barack Obama will be the keynote speaker.

Ban estimated that his Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health could save 16 million lives by 2015.

Of the eight key development targets set a decade ago, cutting deaths of women during pregnancy and childbirth and those of children younger than five have seen the least progress.

Countries from Afghanistan to Zambia - but also including Australia, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia and the United States - have contributed to the drive.

The foundations of the world's richest men, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, were among the contributors. They joined rights groups such as Amnesty International and multinationals such as LG Electronics and Pfizer.

"Never have so many come together to save the lives of women and children," commented Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose country is one of the world's top aid donors.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said investing in women and children's health was "an issue that deserves to be at the top of our development agenda."

A UN statement said the deaths of more than 15 million children under five would be saved between 2011 and 2015 through the initiative.

It added that it would prevent 33 million unwanted pregnancies and 740,000 women from dying from complications relating to pregnancy and childbirth. It estimated that 120 million children would be protected from pneumonia.

It was unclear how much of the $40bn announced is a new spending commitment and reaction to the announcement was mixed from aid groups.

"We have learned to be skeptical of big announcements at summits, and we question how much of this money can possibly be new," said Emma Seery, a spokeswoman for Oxfam.

"What really counts is where the money is coming from, which means leaders going home and putting that money into national budgets."

Seery said $88bn was needed up to 2015 to meet child and maternal health goals.

Several governments in poor nations promised major increases in spending as part of Ban's initiative. Afghanistan said it would increase per capita health spending from 11 dollars to at least 15 by 2020.

The UN said that Britain will spend an additional £2.1bn on child and maternal health from 2011 to 2015.

The three-day summit was called to rejuvenate the eight development targets set at the 2000 Millennium summit, aiming to be reached by 2015.

The goals set target of cutting by two thirds the number of children who die before they are five, and reducing the number of women who die during childbirth by three quarters.

From 1990 to 2008 the number of child deaths fell by 28 per cent, but there are still almost nine million deaths a year.

The Millennium goals also included cutting the number of people who survive on less than one dollar a day by half, halve the number of people who suffer from hunger, halt the spread of AIDS and other killer diseases, achieve universal primary education and empower women.

The United Nations has estimated that at least 120 billion dollars will be needed over the next five years to meet the MDGs, which most experts predict will not be met by the 2015 target date.