Civil Society Announces Major Financial Commitments to the Health of Women and Children

- Progress against key targets is encouraging; more is possible with renewed determination -

NEW YORK, Sept. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A strategy to inspire the world to fulfill promises to save the lives of millions of the world's most marginalized, impoverished and under-served children and women will get significant backing from major humanitarian organizations.

Kevin Jenkins, president of World Vision International, will address the global leaders convened to launch the United Nations Secretary General's Global Strategy for Women and Children's Health in New York today (Wednesday), speaking on behalf of civil society.

"This strategy seeks to correct one of the greatest inequalities of our age, putting right the tragic injustice of eight million children and more than 300,000 pregnant women who die every year from preventable causes," Jenkins will say at the launch event, which begins at 14:30 EDT.

The Millennium Development Goals summit at the United Nations General Assembly this week found in its review of the eight targets that efforts toward meeting MDGs 4 and 5– which deal with the health and survival of mothers, babies and infants – are making some gains. But a decade into the 15 year promise, it is clear most nations will not achieve these two goals at the current rate of progress.

World Vision International has made a commitment of US$1.5 billion to maternal, newborn and child health over five years, with $500 million of that from government or public sources. This week 40 other non-governmental organizations made their own commitments – totaling at least $5 billion of interventions in family and community-based health care and education, support for national health systems, and water, sanitation and nutrition initiatives that create healthier environments.

These pledges underscore a collective determination by civil society to work with communities, governments, foundations, corporations and others in addressing health care inequities that afflict the world's most vulnerable mothers and children.

"We all need to play our part to ensure that health care can reach places where health systems have fallen behind," Jenkins will say at the event.

"As we increase resources, we will also seek to enhance the quality of programming. We will look for more partnerships and encourage innovation."

Facts and Background:

• The commitments are a key part of civil society's contribution to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health launched today at the 65^th UN General Assembly in New York this week, where governments are meeting to discuss the current outlook for meeting  the Millennium Development Goals ("MDGs").  This investment by these NGOs aims to help bring developing countries closer to achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, the two targets relating to maternal and child health, as well as Goal 6, which aims to combat AIDS and other diseases

• Estimates released last week demonstrate progress is being made: Child deaths have declined by a third since 1990, from 34,000 per day, from 12,000.  Nonetheless, only 9 of 64 countries with the highest mortality of children under 5 will meet their goals for reducing child deaths by 2015.

• The MDG 4 target is to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015, from 1990 levels: MDG 5 aims to reduce the maternal mortality rate by three quarters and achieve universal access to reproductive health; and MDG 6 aims halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases, and provide universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.

NOTE TO THE EDITORS

About World Vision:

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities worldwide to overcome poverty and injustice. To learn more about World Vision's Child Health Now campaign, see www.childhealthnow.org

SOURCE World Vision International

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