International Alliance For Reproductive, Maternal, and Newborn Health
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Australia Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, and Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced at the MDG Summit in New York September 22, 2010, a five-year public/private global alliance to contribute to the goal of reducing the unmet need for family planning by 100 million women, expand skilled birth attendance and facility-based deliveries, and increase the numbers of women and newborns receiving quality post-natal care by 2015. The Alliance includes USAID, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Read the one year progress report of the Alliance released September 2011 [PDF, 2MB].
Read remarks on the Alliance at UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Millennium Development Goals' Maternal and Child Health Event - 09/22/10:
Exemplifying the international focus on donor harmonization and country ownership of development, the Alliance will closely coordinate the efforts of partners to support country strategies to scale-up proven, high-impact interventions and to explore and adapt innovations that can advance health outcomes. Alliance partners will coordinate at both the headquarters- and country-levels, seeking to leverage and complement health investments to achieve greater impact in less time. Countries will benefit from the combined technical and programming expertise of key donors in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health.
The Alliance will specifically address aspects of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4, Reduce Child Mortality, and 5, Improve Maternal Health, where progress has been especially slow. Currently, it is estimated that more than 200 million women want to use contraceptives but don’t have access. In addition, only half of the 123 million women who give birth each year receive the antenatal, delivery and postnatal, and newborn care they need; and progress in reducing deaths has been slower for newborn deaths than for deaths among children ages one month to five years.
The Alliance will focus on selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to strengthen both health systems and access to primary and community health care in ways that better serve women and adolescents, that develop and adapt new technologies and innovations to improve health outcomes, and that bring coordinated support to country strategies for family planning, maternal, and neonatal health.
Additional Resources
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