Family Care International (FCI) Ecuador, the Ministry of Health, and UNFPA co-hosted a high-level breakfast in Quito to highlight the importance of promoting and positioning maternal mortality reduction in the national policy agenda.  Ecuador is launching a constitutional reform that opens the door to changes in key policies, and efforts are underway to help ensure that progressive sexual and reproductive health policies are not reversed through this constitutional reform process.

More than 30 high-level stakeholders attended the breakfast.  The National UNFPA representative Mercedes Borrero opened with a presentation on the global Millennium Development Goal (MDG) framework and the dire need for continued action on maternal mortality reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Maritza Segura and Dr. Ninfa Leon from the Ministry of Health each made separate presentations on the conceptual framework shared at (and the recommendations generated through) Women Deliver, highlighting those most relevant priorities for maternal mortality reduction (MMR) in Ecuador.  The Head of the MOH National Health Council presented national priorities and programs for MMR and linked these to the priorities for programming and policy making highlighted at Women Deliver.

Nadia Ribadeneira of the Youth Coalition spoke about how young people are becoming involved in this area, and shared the Deliver for Youth (D4Y) commitments.

These plenary panels were followed by an open debate on how to ensure that the strategies and priorities presented in the panels could be integrated into the new inter-sectoral working groups involved in revising sexual and reproductive health/maternal health policy.  The group made concrete commitments for moving the safe motherhood advocacy agenda forward between agency and NGO partners and with MOH support in 2008.

For the presentations in Spanish, please click here