As the leaders’ convoys pull out of Toronto and Muskoka, we are left to weigh the impact of Canada’s signature “Muskoka Initiative” in support of maternal, newborn and child health.
For over a year, RESULTS has been working to encourage Canada to position child and maternal health as the signature development focus for the G8 and then, after succeeding in that effort, to shape the initiative to ensure it would have the most impact for the world’s poorest people. This work was strengthened through our work in coalition. And, it was fortified by the resolve of our own grassroots heroes who have advocated over decades to put the world’s poorest people at the heart of Canada’s political agenda.
We imagined an initiative that would support front-line community-based health workers, who are supported and equipped with the tools, training and medicines needed to tackle the leading causes of illness and disease in their own communities. At the G8, the results of those efforts were revealed - $1.1 billion in new money from Canada alone and a total of $7.3 billion in total investments. According to the G8 communique, this will result in at least 1.3 million more children who will survive past their fifth birthday, 64,000 more women who will survive pregnancy and childbirth, and 12 million more couples who will have access to family planning.
The Scope of the Initiative
The Muskoka Initiative will support health services along the continuum of care (from pre-pregnancy to pregnancy to childbirth, to infancy and early childhood). It will focus on high-impact, low cost, integrated interventions (think immunizations, vitamin A, bednets, sanitation and handwashing, and more) delivered at the community level, with a commitment to measure results. This is exactly the approach that RESULTS Canada has been championing.
The G8 also reaffirmed that “accountability for results” would be a key part of the initiative. This includes a built-in rigorous accountability framework to ensure promises are kept, progress is measured, results are tracked and Canadians’ aid dollars are used effectively to contribute to a sustainable reduction in maternal and child mortality.
A Catalyst for Sustained Canadian and Global Leadership
At the Summit, Canada showed tremendous leadership and laid down a marker in support of the world’s poorest women and children. Canada’s leadership and billion dollar investment should be applauded. However the G8’s total investment is still only a down payment on the $30 billion that is necessary to save the lives of 10 million mothers and children and meet the Millennium Development Goals on child and maternal health.
Next Steps: Ensuring Canada’s Global Leadership and Concrete Results
Although the scope of the initiative is exciting – the G8 communique was short on details about the concrete delivery mechanisms Canada will use as a funnel for our investments. One mechanism that RESULTS Canada has championing has been the UNICEF-lead Catalytic Initiative to Save a Million Lives (CI). The CI focuses on supporting frontline community health-workers, delivering an integrated bundle of interventions to address the leading causes of illness and disease, and a commitment to measure results. Increasing our current $20 million a year investment in CI should be a key next step for Canada
Additionally, the G8 initiative should be seen as a catalyst for fueling momentum in support of greater global investments to achieve all of the Millennium Development Goals– the eight goals that the world has set to ease global poverty by 2015.
As an acknowledgement that the job does not stop here, RESULTS is calling for an investment in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) that is additional to, and builds on, the Muskoka Initiative. Along with addressing the world’s biggest infectious killers, the Global Fund is key to strengthening health systems and also to ensuring progress on child and maternal health. For example, the Fund is a leading global contributor to preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and also preventing and treating malaria – a leading killer of children. At this October’s donor replenishment of the Global Fund, Canada should increase our current contribution of $150 million annually to the Global Fund by at least 50%.
Take Action
1. Celebrate! A year ago when we launched this G-8 specific campaign, nobody thought it was even possible that Canada would make the poorest women and children a focus for the G8, especially not on the heels of one of the world’s worst economic crashes. This is an historic win and is catalytic in terms of the building additional Canadian support for aid over the longterm and securing future resources.
2. Write Letters to the Editor. Praise Canada’s land-mark Muskoka Initiative and use this opportunity to show that Canada’s leadership for the world’s poorest should be a point of pride. Call for continued Canadian leadership and specifically call for investments in the Catalytic Initiative and the Global Fund as tools for achieving impact. (You may also want to highlight the Robin Hood Tax – the innovative financing mechanism highlighted in May’s Action – as a way to increase financing for Canada’s increased leadership over the long-term.)
3. Write to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister Oda and your MP and let them know that the Muskoka Initiative is something to be proud of and to build on. Encourage Stephen Harper to carry this momentum into a UN-hosted MDG Summit that will take place this Fall in New York. Also, call for specific investments in the Catalytic Initiative and additional support for the Global Fund. Email Minister Bev Oda at: oda.b@parl.gc.ca/ Fax: 613-992-2794. Email the Prime Minister at Harper.S@parl.gc.ca / Fax: 613-941-6900.
