Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, committee members, for giving Save the Children the opportunity to present today.
Save the Children works in Canada and 120 countries overseas to bring immediate and lasting improvements to children's lives. Save the Children focuses on the issues of health and nutrition, education, HIV/AIDS, child protection, emergency relief, and child rights. My specific focus, as the chair mentioned, is the Every One campaign, which is our newborn and child survival initiative.
My colleague Chris has spoken of the shocking number of children and mothers who are dying annually of preventable and treatable causes, and she has outlined the brief presented to the Canadian government by our group of six, a coalition of international aid agencies and advocates working on this issue. Like our coalition partners, Save the Children believes there should be a real drive to expand the coverage of proven integrated interventions that reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality. These include: skilled personnel available during pregnancy, childbirth, and after delivery; preventive and curative treatment of pneumonia, malaria, and diarrhea; and support for nutrition, including breastfeeding, complementary feeding, cash transfers, and wider social protection programs.
Given the recent global economic crisis, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the prospects of achieving MDGs 4 and 5; yet we know that a really dramatic reduction in the number of child deaths is achievable. We know it because many low- and middle-income countries have cut mortality significantly over the last few decades. Many have done so more rapidly than today's developed nations have managed to do in the last century. Although further progress is of course needed, since 1990 more than 60 countries have reduced their child mortality rate by 50%.
One of Save the Children's programmatic approaches to reduce maternal child mortality is the household-to-hospital continuum of care, which strengthens the capacity of caregivers. Whether in the household, the community, health facility, or hospital, this approach helps to address major causes of death before, during, and after childbirth for the mother, as well as the causes of newborn mortality. The approach is outlined on the slide that was presented and that is in your package. You can certainly ask any questions on it during the Q and A afterwards.
Building health workforce care capacity should be a priority, particularly the recruitment and training of front line female health care providers to serve in their communities or in clinics close to their homes. Save the Children has also prioritized community case management as a global child health initiative to address the health needs of children under five. CCM is a strategy in which trained community health workers deliver curative interventions for potential life-threatening childhood infections in remote communities that lack access to health facilities, similar to what Chris outlined in Ethiopia.
For 11 years, Save the Children has reported on the state of the world's mothers. Pregnancy and childbirth is a very risky time, as we know, for mothers in the developing world. Approximately 50 million women give birth each year at home with no professional help whatsoever. This year's report examines how investments in training and deploying female health workers have paid off in terms of lives saved and illnesses averted. It points to low-cost, low-tech solutions that could save millions more lives if only they were more widely available and used.
If we want to solve the interconnected problems of maternal and newborn mortality, we must do a better job of reaching these mothers and babies. Studies show that women prefer female health workers, particularly for uniquely female health issues such as pregnancy and family planning. In some countries, women choose not to vaccinate themselves or their children when the vaccine is administered by a male health worker because they fear the perception of sexual infidelity, or, in the case of some Muslim countries, when modesty precludes women, for example, from lifting up their garments for the vaccine itself.
The report, which is an international report by Save the Children international, dovetails nicely with the Canadian recommendations. We call for training and deploying more health care workers. The number we've put on it internationally at Save the Children is 4.3 million health workers, if we are to meet the millennium development goals by the target date. We also recommend providing better incentive to attract and retain female workers, particularly those working in remote or under-served areas, and that would certainly include better pay and training, support and protection, and opportunities for career growth and professional recognition.
We also believe, of course, that an increased investment in girls' education is essential. If we are to enlarge the pool of young women who are qualified to be health care workers, we must invest in education, obviously. But also, by investing in education we empower future mothers to be stronger and wiser advocates, not only for their own health, but for the health of their children.
Finally, we recommend strengthening basic health systems and designing health care programs to better target the poorest and most marginalized women and children. As we all know, health systems in many developing countries are grossly underfunded and cannot meet the needs of their communities. More funding is needed for staffing, transport, equipment, medicine, health worker training, and supportive supervision, not to mention the day-to-day costs of operating these systems.
Today's developed countries have already cut their mortality rates dramatically over the course of the last century. Many developing countries have made huge strides, often in difficult circumstances. We do not need a major technological breakthrough to dramatically reduce newborn and child mortality; we only need to learn from other countries' successes. We don't need innovation, per se; we simply need the dedication of the adults of the world.
It must become intolerable to all of us here in this room and outside it that a child could die of a preventable or treatable cause, or indeed that a woman should die simply because she's too far away from a hospital or can't afford to have access to health care before, during, or after birth.
The deaths of millions of young children and mothers every year is a moral outrage and comparable to the worst abuses and social evils of the past. Every one of us has a role to play in tackling this problem. Further delay or inaction is simply inexcusable.
Thank you.