In May, Stephen Harper announced $3.5 billion support to ‘Maternal, newborn and child health’ initiative. In 2010, at G-8 Summit Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, newborn and child was endorsed by the leaders Under Muskoka G-8 committed US $ 7.3 billion in a global funding for over five years. The main goal of this strategy is to save 16 million lives by 2015 in the world’s 49 poorest countries.
Canada now is focusing on providing the organizations working at ground level with tools and funding to make real difference in the life of women, children in many regions of the world. With a new website (www.can-mnch.ca) and new approach Canadian government is trying to make every donation dollar and effort count.
The Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (CAN-MNCH), comprises of seventy organizations, it is active in more than thousand regions in the world and has more than ten thousand ground workers. In a recent roundtable Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada shared how the simple and inexpensive interventions like the ones found in the kit that were delivered to Canadian Members of Parliament are most effective.
It seems that government is doing some real good work and even critics of the government will have to admit that it’s better late than never that Canada has realized that funding for mosquito nets is more important than sending medicines to cure malaria, finally we have realized that prevention is better than cure. Innovation and strategy to help save lives of women and children is commendable but how government plans to monitor the funding and organizations is yet to be seen.
On doing research about how this accountability policy will be executed globally, it was found that the Director-General of the World Health Organization is coordinating the process put in place international institutional arrangements for global reporting, oversight and accountability. A multi nation commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health keeps a close watch on the agencies delivering the aid at ground level. Paul Calandra says that government intends to follow every dollar and see it reaches the rightful person, we hope that our government delivers on that.
The bright side is that finally the developed nations have realized that it takes more than money to improve the living conditions of women and children in certain parts of the world. We have amazing tools and technology here in North America but most of the time it’s not relevant to the countries where it’s being deployed as part of donation. A donated item should have shelf life beyond the photo-op.
Lighter side of life By RandomthougtsofZee
Life of dog, as food; Life of a human as dog
Human life is a once in a life time opportunity, if you don’t believe me ask a dog in Vietnam. A dog in a cage in Vietnam, headed to a torturehouse a.ka. slaughterhouse knows really well what it means to be able to live even a second without fear, it would die next second to at least have chance to life a fear free life for one second away from the meat cleaver and stench of blood and sounds of cries of despair of his buddies who are being readied by humans for human consumption.
