“As president of the G8 in 2010, Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world’s poorest regions. Members of the G8 can make a tangible difference in maternal and child health and Canada will be making this the top priority in June. (…) The solutions are not intrinsically expensive. The cost of clean water, inoculations and better nutrition, as well as the training of health workers to care for women and deliver babies, is within the reach of any country in the G8. Much the same could be said of child mortality. The solutions are similar in nature – better nutrition, immunization – and equally inexpensive in themselves.
“As its contribution to this G8 initiative, Canada will look to mobilize G8 governments and non-governmental organizations as well as private foundations. Setting a global agenda for improving maternal and child health is an ambitious plan. But working with other nations and aid agencies on the ground where the need is greatest makes it an achievable goal.”
These are the words of Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada and director of the Canadian presidency of the meeting of the international body.
They are not just any words. They are words expressed by a top-level politician that have been posted on an official media, in this case the G8. They are not statements made to the press and, therefore, interpreted to create a headline. They are not a comment expressed at the end of a meeting during the general questions and answers period.
Do they express a determined political will? Will they bring about plausible changes in international aid? Will they save lives?
Or are they the umpteenth way forward? Just another statement of principles, of the many that have already been amassed in the interminable cemetery of good intentions?
The issue is not a minor one, but neither is the threat to biodiversity, the absence of regulations on chemical pollutants or the climate change. Concepts, challenges that also have aroused the desire to mobilise governments, NGOs…. and that in the end have ended up as ways of playing to the crowd.
In an era of marketing good intentions, we must vindicate auditable facts. Are Harper’s words good news? Let’s just say we’ll be paying attention. That we’ll be following the process; that we’ll be asking for results… that we’ll not forget about the editorial in question. It’s still too early to be celebrating anything; the issue is too serious to play down.
Only 3% of aid that rich countries give to the developing world goes into maternal, newborn and child healthcare, asserts Save the Children. “…if the G8 leaders and other donors do not double that money to at least US$7 billion by 2012, they will have no chance of reaching their target to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015.”
Harper’s editorial is lacking numbers, don’t you think?
Tags: child health, development cooperation, G8
Tags: child health, development cooperation, G8
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