The theme for the WOMEN DELIVER initiative is “Invest in women—it pays.” This theme captures a simple truth: When a society spends money and other resources to improve the lives of women, children and families, the benefits rebound through that entire society:
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The Women Deliver initiative works to improve maternal and newborn health and ensure universal access to reproductive health.
Specifically, we:
- Mobilize donors and priority governments to increase financial investments for maternal and newborn health by an additional $5 billion annually by 2010 and by an additional $8 billion annually by 2015
- Mobilize and strengthen the capacity of civil society institutions in Africa, Asia, and LAC to promote supportive maternal and newborn health policies and strategies from 2008-2015
- Strengthen the implementation of supportive maternal and newborn health policies and strategies by donors, priority governments, and maternal health and development institutions from 2008-2015
To read more check us out at womendeliver.org.
1 Comment
April 29, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Dear Bloggers,
I’m writing to you on behalf of an organization I work with, the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS) an initiative of Seattle Children’s Hospital. As you probably know, there is significant lack awareness and data to help anyone put into perspective the toll prematurity and stillbirth has on families and society as a whole.
Those facts that are available paint a grim picture:
• Every year around the world, there are more than three million stillbirths and more than one million babies die as a result of complications surrounding premature births. Prematurity and stillbirth contribute to more deaths among children under age five than AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.
• While these global health problems are widely felt in low- and middle-income countries, the rates of premature births and stillbirths are in fact on the rise everywhere, including high-income countries.
• Premature babies who do survive face an increased risk for death, infections, cerebral palsy, brain injury, respiratory problems, vision and hearing complications, as well as learning and developmental challenges.
GAPPS is bringing together the brightest minds in science, global health, neonatal medicine, research and health policy to study the “gaps” in information, and policy and knowledge surrounding prematurity and stillbirth. As doctors and scientists – themselves parents, in many cases – who deal with these outcomes every day, they’re working to pull together the data and examine the causes of prematurity and stillbirth, and where they are known, to promote the interventions to confront these under-addressed maternal and child health challenges.
GAPPS is a new organization, but they’re working quickly. The first ever conference to examine the causes of prematurity and stillbirth will take place in May of this year. The GAPPS conference will be co-convened by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, March of Dimes, Save the Children, UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
We would like to arrange for you to speak with a local expert or family that has been affected by these issues. If you are interested, we can line up spokespeople here in the U.S. and around the world or if you would like to speak with someone at UNICEF, PATH, WHO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GAPPS or Save the Children, that can also be arranged.
Thank you for your consideration.
Kind regards,
Michelle Lazcano
On behalf of GAPPS
The Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth
http://www.gapps.org/