| CARE gives G8 a yellow card for performance on maternal health; Pleads with world leaders to fill remaining funding gap at upcoming Millennium Development Summit |
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Toronto, Canada – CARE International is expressing its disappointment with G8 leaders who, as a group, failed to step forward and back the Canadian ‘Muskoka Initiative’ with adequate funds for lifesaving maternal, newborn and child health care interventions worldwide. CARE commends the Government of Canada for making maternal, newborn and child health the signature initiative for the 2010 G8 Summit, and for committing significant new money. However, with the exact details of each country’s commitments still unclear, CARE is disheartened with the total G8 commitment of only $5 billion. “Many of the world’s richest countries have let down the world’s most vulnerable mothers and children. These lives are at risk, and we must act now,” said Kevin McCort, President and CEO of CARE Canada. “Every minute around the world women and children are dying. And they are dying, not because we don’t know how to save them, but because leaders and countries with the power to help do not have the will. It’s unacceptable.” CARE had called on the G8 to double its current commitment to $4 billion a year over five years, leveraging the remaining funds from other non-G8 actors to reach the $30 billion. At the G8, Canada said it will commit CDN $1.1 billion in new funding for maternal health initiatives over the next five years. The United States, United Kingdom and others have committed to a share of the remaining $3.9 billion. This is a mere down payment on the estimated $30 billion needed to meet Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 – reducing child and maternal mortality – by the 2015 deadline. Already an additional $2.3 billion has been promised by other non-G8 countries and private foundations, including South Korea, New Zealand, Norway, the UN Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CARE is pleading with G8 nations to come back and fill the remaining funding gap when the world gathers for the Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York in September, 2010. “We’re giving the rest of the G8 a yellow card. They need to come back to the table at the MDG Summit with real commitments and set an example for the rest of the world. And given the shortfall, the urgency is even greater,” added McCort. CARE has more than 50 years of experience delivering maternal and child health projects in vulnerable communities around the world. In Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia, CARE has succeeded in helping reduce fatality rates in emergency obstetric care facilities by 30 to 50 percent. With its Mothers Matter program, CARE’s goal is to make pregnancy and delivery safer for 30 million women in Africa, Asia and Latin America by 2015. Read more!
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