Vanguard (Lagos)
Judith Ufford
16 November 2000
Tunis — Senior government officials from 11 countries, and representatives from the United Nations and Non-governmental organisations gathered yesterday at the opening of the international conference on "Saving Lives: Skilled Attendance at Childbirth."
In his welcome remarks, president of the Ghana Institute of Arts and Science and Chair of the conference, Dr. Fred Sai, stated " maternal and child health are at the root of the vicious cycle of poverty that restrain our communities from realising their potential".
Continuing, he added that "we must never forget that women are the backbones of our communities and that our children are our future."
In a keynote address, the Prime Minister of Mozambique, Dr. Pascoal Mocumbi said there was need for various governments to ask themselves some questions in order to justify the existence of Safe Motherhood Initiative in their country. According to him, "what is the use of the Initiative in a country when a pregnant woman have to cross a river in a boat to get to the maternity centre?" Continuing, he said, there was no need for referral when facilities are available in the hospitals.
In his endorsement conference, World Bank President, James Wolfensohn said: "The financial cost of basic maternal and child health services that could prevent complications from pregnancy and childbirth, on average only US$3 per person per year in developing countries and the cost of maternal health services alone can be as little as $2 per person per year."
"Increasing skilled attendance at childbirth is a crucial investment in the global effort to reduce maternal mortality," he stressed.
In his address to the conference, the Tunisian Minister of Health noted that "the president of the Republic of Tunisia has issued clear instructions that appropriate actions be taken to reduce the maternal mortality rate in Tunisia to less than 50 per 100,000 live births before the year end of 2001."
Complications from pregnancy and childbirth account for more than 514,000 deaths per year or one woman dying every minute. Nearly 99 percent of maternal deaths occur in the developing world where almost one in 20 women dies from pregnancy - related cause.
Teams from the 11 countries - Burkina Faso, Nepal, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Bangladesh, Botswana, Malaysia, Tunisia and Sri Lanka will in the next two days share strategies and learn from their counterparts.
Through this South- south exchange of expertise and experience, national action plans will be devised that will enable policymakers and advocates to push for increases in resources and expansion of programmes for skilled care at childbirth.
The conference is organised by the SafeMotherhood Inter-Agency Group (IAG), a consortium of international and national organisations that implement the Safe Motherhood Initiative. Organisations in the group include UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, the International Confederation of Midwives, the SafeMotherhood Network of Nepal, and the Regional Prevention of Maternal Mortality Programme (Africa). Family Care International, an international NGO based in New York serves as secretariat for the IAG.
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