Afghanistan will increase public spending on health from $10.92 to at least $15 per capita by 2020. Afghanistan will increase the proportion of deliveries assisted by a skilled professional from 24% to 75% through strategies such as increasing the number of midwives from 2400 to 4556 and increasing the proportion of women with access to emergency obstetric care to 80%. Afghanistan will also improve access to health services - strengthening outreach, home visits, mobile health teams, and local health facilities. Afghanistan will increase the use of contraception from 15% to 60%, the coverage of childhood immunization programs to 95%, and universalize Integrated Management of Childhood Illness.

Learn More

Australia supports the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health as a firm platform for putting the health needs of women and children back into the centre of the development agenda. Recognising the need for increased effort on women’s and children’s health, Australia will invest around US$1.5 billion (A$1.6 billion) over the five years to 2015 on interventions evidence shows will improve maternal and child health outcomes. These will include expanding access to family planning and vaccination services, and funding skilled health workers (including midwives), health facilities and supplies. Financial support committed in 2010 includes an additional US$79.5 million (A$85 million) for the Pacific and Papua New Guinea and US$131 million (A$140 million) for Eastern Africa. Australia’s strong focus on Indonesia, South Asia and effectively performing international organisations will also continue. [on current projections subject to annual budget processes]

Learn More

Bangladesh commits to: doubling the percentage of births attended by a skilled health worker by 2015 (from the current level of 24.4%) through training an additional 3000 midwives, staffing all 427 sub-district health centres to provide round-the-clock midwifery services, and upgrading all 59 district hospitals and 70 Mother and Child Welfare Centres as centres of excellence for emergency obstetric care services. Bangladesh will also reduce the rate of adolescent pregnancies through social mobilization, implementation of the minimum legal age for marriage, and upgrading one third of MNCH centres to provide adolescent friendly sexual and reproductive health services. Bangladesh will halve unmet need for family planning (from the current level of 18%) by 2015; and ensure universal implementation of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness Programme.

Learn More

Benin will increase the national budget dedicated to health to 10% by 2015 with a particular focus on women, children, adolescents and HIV; introduce a policy to ensure universal free access to emergency obstetric care; ensure access to the full package of reproductive health interventions by 2018; and increase the use of contraception from 6.2% to 15%. Benin will also step up efforts to address HIV/AIDS through providing ARVs to 90% of HIV+ pregnant women; ensuring that 90% of health centres offer PMTCT services; and enacting measures against stigma and discrimination. Benin will develop new policies on adolescent sexual health; pass a law against the trafficking of children, and implement new legislation on gender equality.

Learn More

Burkina Faso has met the 15% target for health spending, and commits to maintain spending at this level. Burkina Faso will also develop and implement a plan for human resources for health and construct a new public and private school for midwives by 2015. This is in addition to other initiatives being pursued which will also impact on women’s and children’s health, including free schooling for all primary school girls by 2015, and measures to enforce the laws against early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation.

Learn More

Burundi commits to increase the allocation to health sector from 8% in 2011 to 15% in 2015, with a focus on women and children’s health; increase the number of midwives from 39 in 2010 to 250, and the number of training schools for midwives from 1 in 2011 to 4 in 2015; increase the percentage of births attended by a skilled birth attendant from 60% in 2010 to 85% in 2015. Burundi also commits to increase contraception prevalence from 18.9% in 2010 to 30%; PMTCT service coverage from 15% in 2010 to 85% with a focus on integration with reproductive health; and reduce percentage of underweight children under-five from 29% to 21% by 2015.

 

Learn More

Cambodia will ensure that 95% of the poor are covered by health equity funds by 2015, and develop a new policy to ensure availability of emergency obstetric care at the district level. Cambodia will improve reproductive health by increasing the proportion of deliveries assisted by a skilled birth attendant to 70%; increase the proportion of couples using modern contraception to 60%; and increase the number of health facilities offering safe abortion/post abortion services. Cambodia will further seek to increase attendance at ante-natal clinics to 90% and attendance at post-natal clinics to 50%.

Learn More

Cameroon commits to implement and expand the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), re-establish midwifery training to train 200 midwives a year, and pilot a performance-based financing and a voucher system in order to promote access to maternal and child care services. Cameroon further commits to increase the contraception prevalence from 14% to 38%; the proportion of HIV+ pregnant women access to antiretrovirals from 57% to 75%; and the vaccine coverage from 84% to 93%. Cameroon will increase to 60% the proportion of health facilities offering integrated services; increase to 50% the proportion of women with access to Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) services; offer free malaria care to children under 5; ensure free availability of mosquito-treated nets to every family; increase funding to paediatric HIV/AIDS; strengthen health information systems management and integrated disease surveillance.

As Chair of the G8, Canada made maternal, newborn and child health a priority for the G8 Muskoka Summit in June 2010. At the Muskoka Summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed C$1.1billion in new and additional funding for women's and children's health as part of the Muskoka Initiative. Prime Minister Harper also confirmed renewal of existing resources of C$1.75 billion, meaning Canada will provide C$2.85 billion for MNCH by 2015. Canada will focus its efforts on improving the services and care needed to ensure healthy pregnancies and safe delivery, and placing a particular emphasis on meeting the nutritional needs of pregnant women, mothers, newborns and young children. Canada will work to increase access to the high-impact, cost-effective interventions that address the leading killers of children under the age of five. Canada will also commit an additional $540 million over three years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This is in addition to a total of $978.4 million that Canada has committed and disbursed to the Global Fund since 2002.

Learn More

Central African Republic commits to increase health sector spending from 9.7% to 15%, with 30% of the health budget focused on women and children’s health; ensure emergency obstetric care and prevention of PMTCT in at least 50% of health facilities; and ensure the number of births assisted by skilled personnel increase from 44% to 85% by 2015. CAR will also create at least 500 village centers for family planning to contribute towards a target of increase contraception prevalence from 8.6% to 15%; increase vaccination coverage to 90%; and ensure integration of childhood illnesses including pediatric HIV/AIDS in 75% of the health facilities.

Chad commits to increase health sector spending to 15%; provide free emergency care for women and children; provide free HIV testing and ARVs; allocate of US$10million per year for implementation of the national roadmap for accelerating reduction in MNC mortality; strengthen human resources for health by training 40 midwives a year for the next 4 years, including creating a school of midwifery and constructing a national referral hospital for women and children with 250 beds; and deploying health workers at health centres to ensure delivery of a minimum package of services. Chad also commits to pass a national human resources for health policy; increase contraception prevalence to 15%; ensure 50% of the births are assisted by a skilled birth attendant; and increase coverage of PMTCT from 7% to 80%, and pediatric HIV coverage from 9% to 80%.

 

Learn More

China will continue to increase its domestic investment in women and children's health, through new policies and measures, and additional financing. New reforms now being implemented will provide basic health care insurance for all. There are also new measures which especially benefit rural women, including free breast and cervical cancer screening, hospital birth-delivery subsidies, and free folic acid supplements. Additional measures include free hepatitis B vaccination for all children under 15 years old, a national immunization program covering all children, and free services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus for all pregnant women. The government will also reimburse 90% of medical expenses for rural children who have congenital heart disease or leukaemia.

Learn More

Comoros commits to increase health sector spending to 14% of budget by 2014; ensure universal coverage for PMTCT by 2015; reduce underweight children from 25% to 10%; increase contraception prevalence rate from 13% to 20%; and the births that take place in health facilities from 75% to 85%. Comoros will also accelerate the implementation existing national policies including the national plan for reproductive health commodity security, the strategic plan for human resources for health, and the roadmap for accelerating reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality.

 

Learn More

Congo commits to reducing maternal mortality and morbidity by 20% by 2015 including obstetric fistula, by introducing free obstetric care, including free access to caesarean sections. Congo will also establish a new observatory to investigate deaths linked to pregnancy; and will support women’s empowerment by passing a law to ensure equal representation of Congolese women in political, elected and administrative positions.

Learn More

Côte d'Ivoire commits to ensure the provision of free health services for all pregnant women during delivery, including free caesarian-sections, for women affected by obstetric fistula, and for children under 5. Côte d'Ivoire also commits to rehabilitate maternity centres, provide insecticide-treated mosquito nets for women and children under 5; to strengthen the integrated management of childhood illnesses programmes; and to integrate HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health, and community involvement in health management, including training health workers to ensure the provision of family planning at the community level.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will develop a national health policy aimed to strengthen health systems, and will allocate more funds from the Highly Indebted Poor Country program to the health sector. DRC will increase the proportion of deliveries assisted by a skilled birth attendant to 80%, and increase emergency obstetric care and the use of contraception. The government will increase to 70% the number of children under 12 months who are fully immunized; ensure that up to 80% of children under 5 and pregnant women use ITNs; and provide AVRs to 20,000 more people living with HIV/AIDS.

Learn More

Djibouti commits to increase the health budget from 14% to 15%. In terms of service delivery, the Government will ensure that all pregnant women will have access to skilled personnel during childbirth. For this purpose, the Government will increase the number of trained midwives and nurses and will increase access to emergency obstetric care services nationally to 80%. A package of integrated emergency obstetric and newborn care and reproductive health will also be delivered in health services. This will be achieved by ensuring that all health centers are upgraded to deliver a package of emergency obstetric and newborn care and reproductive health services by upgrading them and ensuring that appropriate staff are posted and maintained in those centers. Contraceptive prevalence will be increased to 70%. The mobile health services will be extended to cover all areas of the country and will adopt a mix of outreach services, home visits and community based interventions. The government commits to implement Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses in all health centers. Vaccine coverage will be 100%. Malnutrition will be addressed through a comprehensive multi-sectoral package in order to reduce the prevalence of stunting to 20% and that of wasting to 10%. Djibouti commits to decrease the HIV/AIDS prevalence to 1.8% in 2015 and to ensure that all pregnant HIV-positive women receive antiretrovirals.

Ethiopia will increase the number of midwives from 2050 to 8635; increase the proportion of births attended by a skilled professional from 18% to 60%; and provide emergency obstetric care to all women at all health centres and hospitals. Ethiopia will also increase the proportion of children immunized against measles to 90%, and provide access to prevention, care and support and treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it, by 2015. As a result, the government expects a decrease in the maternal mortality ratio from 590 to 267, and under-five morality from 101 to 68 (per 100,000) by 2015.

Learn More

France announced 500 million euros for the period 2011-2015 to support the Muskoka initiative. Furthermore, France announces this week an increase by 20 % of its contribution to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria over the period 2011-2013 (1.080 billion euros as compared to 900 million euros for the previous triennium).

2011

France made a substantial commitment to the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health in 2010, and during 2011 it has been greatly strengthened. France has allocated EUR 19 million per year to the World Health Organisation, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women in support of their joint initiatives on women's and children's health. In addition, the increase of the French contribution to the GAVI Alliance for the period 2011-2015 amounts to EUR 100 million, and the increase of its contribution to UNAIDS amounts to EUR 60 million per year. 100% of the contribution to GAVI and 46% of the contribution to UNAIDS - a total of EUR 47 million per year - directly supports MDG4 and MDG5. Finally, France, through its international development agency, will allocate EUR 48 million per year towards national and multi-country projects to improve the development of health systems.

Learn More

The Gambia commits to increase the health budget to 15% of the national budget by the year 2015; and to implement its existing free maternal and child health care policy, ensuring universal coverage of high quality emergency maternal, neonatal and child health services. Special attention will be accorded to rural and hard-to-reach areas. Efforts will be intensified to increase the proportion of births attended by skilled professionals to 64.5%, ensure reproductive health commodities security, scale up free Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) services to all reproductive health clinics and ensure universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services, including social protection for women, orphans and vulnerable children. Furthermore, The Gambia will continue to maintain the high immunization coverage for all antigens at 80% and above at regional levels, and 90% and above at national levels, while seeking to increase access of all children, particularly in the most vulnerable communities, to high impact and cost-effective interventions that address the main killers of children under five.