Good morning. Bonjour.
Honourable members, thank you very much for providing the Canadian Red Cross with an opportunity to address the committee today. My name is Patricia Strong and I lead the development of our programs in maternal, newborn, and child health. Our secretary general, Conrad Sauvé, also wished to convey his appreciation for allowing us this opportunity, and he regrets he could not be with all of us today. The evolving tragedy in Nepal requires his attention this morning.
Today I would like to focus on maternal, newborn, and child health, and to emphasize that the protection of children and youth must also mean addressing those threats to their health and very survival. I would also like us to recognize that together, as a global community, we can accomplish great results.
Our investment in maternal, newborn, and child health has been enormously successful, and as the world embarks on the era of sustainable development goals, we can face the next 15 years with great optimism about what we can achieve. As together we think about what can be accomplished in this new era, I would also like to focus on the important challenges ahead and the contributions that we believe the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement can bring to these challenges.
Since the world came together to establish the MDGs 15 years ago, tremendous progress has been made. The lives of 3.3 million children have been saved because of our progress in malaria alone. Millions of women and children have survived because of the efforts of the global community, and the commitment of the Canadian government in particular. Saving these lives has been the ultimate form of child protection. We can continue to achieve great progress for all women and children if we renew our efforts and genuinely commit to the sustainable goal target of ending preventable maternal and child deaths before 2030.
More than half of all maternal and child deaths occur in countries affected by disaster, conflict, and fragility in some of the most remote and troubled regions of the world. We cannot achieve the SDGs unless we make a sustained and determined effort to reach these mothers and children with life saving MNCH services. It is in these hard-to-reach and dangerous contexts that women and children face the greatest threats to their lives, to their health, and to their survival with dignity. Even now, as we respond to the tragedy in Nepal, we have great concerns for mothers and children, who often suffer the most during crises. We have seen that during disasters and conflict the greatest health impacts are often from the chronic lack of access to basic health care services as health systems collapse or are unable to cope.
For example, in Syria the collapse of the health system has disproportionately impacted on women and children, who continue to bear the brunt of the Syrian crisis. The crisis has contributed to the resurgence of diseases that we thought were eradicated, such as polio, and children have no access to treatment for pneumonia or diarrhea.
The health and nutrition status of women and children who have survived is also grave. We know that rates of sexual violence increase in disaster and conflict situations. Through our work we witness the devastating consequences of sexual violence on individuals, families, and communities. In emergency situations, sexual violence is deeply linked to other patterns of violence. It is never acceptable, and during times of conflict sexual violence is prohibited under international law.
We believe that in order to address these pressing MNCH issues and significantly improve the health outcomes for mothers and their children, we must reach the most remote and volatile areas, particularly in conflict-affected and fragile states, where health indicators are the worst and access is the most difficult. It is only then that we will see true progress towards our global goal of ending preventable maternal and child deaths by 2030.
As an organization dedicated to lifesaving assistance in populations affected by crises, the Canadian Red Cross has delivered essential health services for a century, and internationally for more than 50 years. In the past 10 years alone we have supported vital health programming throughout disasters and conflicts in 39 of the world's 50 most fragile states, either directly or in partnership with other members of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Currently we have bilateral programming in seven fragile states, and proposals in the pipeline to extend our programming to Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and Ethiopia. In all our MNCH work we're committed to achieving or exceeding global standards, and we measure our progress against indicators established by the UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health.
In addition to addressing pressing MNCH needs, the Canadian Red Cross has been committed to child protection programming for 30 years. We work with local communities to find local solutions to violence against children. All of our MNCH programs include training for staff and volunteers in violence prevention, including child protection.
I would like to turn our attention for a moment to the global focus on innovation. The Canadian Red Cross and partners know that new ideas and technologies can save lives. We believe that innovation is a critical element of achieving our collective hope to end preventable maternal and child deaths.
Our focus on innovation must be accompanied with the means to take life-saving interventions to scale, even in the world's most challenging contexts. Only then will we be able to eradicate deadly childhood diseases and achieve greater equity in health to ensure that all women and children have access to critical health care services.
We recognize, however, that there are many challenges in taking innovations to scale, including sustained delivery to the millions of women and children who need these interventions the most. We believe our global family can help address these challenges.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has a permanent presence in 189 countries, and we have 17 million active and trained volunteers worldwide. This provides us with essential local knowledge and access to the most remote communities. It also provides us with an unprecedented reach.
Our movement has supported the vaccination of more than one billion children worldwide. The Canadian Red Cross and partners, with the support of the Canadian government, have distributed seven million insecticide-treated nets to combat malaria, reaching more than 10 million women and children in Africa alone.
Finally, we believe that local capacities and partnerships are essential to maternal and child protection and survival in fragile and conflict-affected states. Through our work, we have also learned about the importance of strengthened and resilient health systems in communities and of working with and building the capacity of local partners, especially during times of disaster, conflict, and fragility.
Where government structures may be limited or completely absent, relying on local actors is essential to gaining access to and acceptance by local communities. In Syria, we worked to strengthen the capacity of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent prior to the conflict. This strength has enabled them to continue functioning throughout the crisis. They have an unparalleled reach throughout Syria, delivering emergency and primary health care services in the most marginalized areas.
In Liberia, as the Ebola crisis overwhelmed the health system, health workers and volunteers in our Red Cross program continue to deliver MNCH services to thousands of mothers and children at the community level, including no-touch treatments for malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia.
In closing, I would like to remind us that on this day more than 500 mothers and 18,000 children will die needlessly from preventable diseases and conditions. More than half of these mothers and children will die in countries affected by disaster, conflict, and fragility. We ask you to think of these women and children in Syria, in Nepal, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in those too many countries where disaster, conflict, and instability persist.
Yet there is hope. Let us work together, not only for the survival of these women and children, but to ensure that they thrive to full and healthy lives with dignity, and that we commit to the health and quality of life for all women and children, no matter the circumstances to which they have been born.
In closing, the Canadian Red Cross would like to thank the honourable committee members once again for giving us a chance to share our perspective on these critical issues. We welcome the Government of Canada's continued commitment to MNCH, and we look forward to Canada's continued global contribution to the health of women and children.
Thank you very much.