Every Woman Every Child

Originally posted on The Children's Project International

This blog is published in collaboration with a larger campaign spearheaded by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and conducted by Heads of State and Government; Heads of U.N. Agencies; CEO’s; Leaders of Civil Society Organizations; and other global leaders who have demonstrated their leadership in the health field, in support of Every Woman Every Child. Learn more at  www.everywomaneverychild.org.

Tomorrow morning, members of the U.N. General Assembly will convene in New York and mark the final three year push to meet the Millennium Development Goals by their 2015 deadline. For the past two years, The Children’s Project International has supported a number of projects and initiatives which daily advance the cause of eradicating extreme poverty and substantially improving maternal and children’s health.

Together with our partners, TCPI and the global community are racing to the finish line. More children are surviving their earliest years and the rate at which we are reducing the deaths of children under five has jumped from 1.8% in 2000 to 3.2% last year. Initiatives to improve water supply and sanitation, including our own Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH) Program, are halting the spread of waterborne disease and diarrhea, two of the major causes of death of young children. Educational programs to promote exclusive breast feeding have led to improved health outcomes for infants and their mothers.

But despite this progress, the majority of developing countries are still expected to fall short of their MDG targets for reducing maternal and child mortality by 2015. Nearly 19,000 children still die every day, most from preventable causes. And each of those preventable deaths is a reason for TCPI to reiterate its support for the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, the U.N. Secretary General’s roadmap to improving the lives of women and children in the developing world. With $88 billion requested and only $10 billion having been disbursed as of 2012, the U.N. General Assembly is an opportunity to remind global leaders of the promise made to the millions of mothers and children who have died a preventable death since the first MDG summit. But it is also an opportunity for communities and private citizens to get engaged with the process. Non-governmental actors like TCPI have a role to play in spotlighting unrecognized humanitarian needs and scaling up effective interventions to promote healthy mothers and children. Citizens can pledge not just their charity, but also their time and energy to hold their leaders accountable and demand governments to deliver on their promises to the world’s poorest.

Tomorrow is a call to action. Will you answer?