Canada commits $3.5B to child, maternal health
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(Updated) At the Child and Maternal Health Summit the prime minister is hosting in Toronto, Stephen Harper made a major funding announcement today, dedicating $3.5 billion towards improving maternal health care in developing nations.
The whole point of this summit by the PM is to reduce the number of women who die as a complication of child birth or children who dies shortly after from things that are considered simple to avoid by our standards. But the price tag is big, and $3.5 billion is a big commitment.
The announcement took place at Davisville Public School across town from the summit at the Royal York Hotel. Joining the prime minister at the annoucement today was minister of international development Christian Paradis, Melinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates, Queen Rania of Jordan, president Kikwete of Tanzenia and Harper’s wife, Laureen.
The prime minister alluded to this yesterday when he spoke to kick off the summit, and today he announced that pledge from Canada for $3.5 billion to be spent between 2015 and 2020. This is a bigger commitment than was made at the Muskoka Initiative in 2010 — $650 million more. The prime minister says there is a moral imperative to saving the lives of vulnerable women and children in some of the worlds poorest nations.
The prime minister started this focus back in 2010 with the Muskoka Initiative and the $2.85 billion that Canada put forward was used to leverage $40 billion world wide. That, they say, has translated to results like two million lives saved thanks to vaccinations alone.
Now that the Government of Canada has decided to step up their initiative, prime minister Harper says they will spend the next 18 months working with other nations to reaffirm their commitments and get more money on the table.
