PRESS RELEASES

Hope for Mothers around the Globe from (2009-05-06)

Traditional donor aid budgets are failing to provide the additional resources needed to improve healthcare across the globe. Mothers and children continue to die in unacceptable numbers. The answer: innovative new financing mechanisms that complement traditional aid.

Everyone stands to lose if the economic downturn causes increasing global spending to stall, but during this week of Mothers Day and International Day of the Midwife, it is a good time to remind ourselves that women and children will lose the most.

Every year, 1500 women every day die of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, and 99% of these deaths take place in developing countries. Newborn survival is linked to maternal health. 10,000 new born babies die each day because their mothers do not have access to skilled emergency care.

The discrepancy in maternal deaths between rich and poor countries is the starkest statistic in public health. Of all the development goals agreed when the Millennium Declaration was signed by 189 countries, the one for reducing maternal mortality is the least likely to be met.

Real progress in reducing maternal mortality depends on access to good quality health care services. We know what is needed to build strong health systems - trained staff; adequate supplies of medicines and equipment; decent facilities; and a system of paying for care which is fair and protects people from impoverishment when they fall sick. And this costs money.

Over the last five years, aid for health has doubled and it has made a huge difference - saving millions of lives. Many low income countries - particularly in Africa - have also increased health spending on the back of economic growth. New AIDS infections are falling and progress is being made in combating malaria and TB. Vaccines are reaching more children than ever before. Under-five mortality dropped below 10 million per year in 2006.

The challenge is to protect the health gains that have already been achieved; to build up scarce infrastructure resources and to increase the number of trained health workers. The next task is to persuade governments – particularly in the rich world – to keep their promises, and not cut aid in the face of economic recession.

But there will still be a gap. Traditional sources of aid fall short of what is needed to make a lasting impact on the health of women and children. Chaired by Gordon Brown and World Bank president Robert Zoellick, the Taskforce for Innovative International Finance for Health Systems is a group of world leaders who are determined to find new ways of funding healthcare systems throughout the developing world. The Taskforce will explore the potential for new and predictable income streams; ways of channelling funds that link resources to results; and which support locally defined priorities and plans. The aim is to complement traditional donor aid with new revenues in order to meet the health MDGs by 2015. The Task Force will be reporting on its work to the G8 Summit in July and to the UN General Assembly in September.

With 100 million of the world’s most vulnerable people now pushed back into poverty as a result of the food crisis that preceded the economic downturn, it is now vital that, rather than turning off the aid tap, we look for the means to increase its flow.

For more information on the Taskforce and interviews with spokespeople:
colleen@harrisprivate.com or call +44(0)7802 296 737 or+44(0)20 7223 4512
www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/taskforce.html

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About the Taskforce

1. The Taskforce will make recommendations on the mix of innovative international financing mechanisms needed to deliver the extra resources required;
2. The Taskforce will promote international support for these recommendations to ensure they are implemented.
3. The Taskforce met in Downing Street, London on 13 March 2009
4. Working Group 1 report – Constraints and Costs and working Group 2 report – Raising and Channelling Funds were both published on 13 March 2009 and are available on the website
5. London Civil Society event took place on 5 March – reports is published on the website
6. Johannesburg Civil Society event planned for 13-14 May 2009

Taskforce members:

1. Prime Minister Gordon Brown (United Kingdom) (co-chair)
2. Robert Zoellick (President of the World Bank) (co-chair)
3. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia)
4. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (Norway)
5. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Health Minister, Ethiopia)
6. Bernard Kouchner (Foreign Minister, France)
7. Giulio Tremonti (Finance Minister, Italy)
8. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (UNSG Special Envoy for Finance for Development Conference & Development Minister, Germany)
9. Stephen Smith (Foreign Affaires Minister, Australia)
10. Margaret Chan (Director-General of the World Health Organization)
11. Graça Machel (President and Founder, Foundation for Community Development, Mozambique)

Phillippe Douste-Blazy the UN Secretary-General Special Envoy on Innovative Financing serves as Special Envoy to the Taskforce

For more information on the work of the Taskforce and to view reports and documents please visit www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/taskforce.html