Progress so far...

In a recent joint statement from the British and Australian PMs, the Australian PM made the following global health-related commitments:

• Join the International Health Partnership to ensure better coordinated aid for health systems
  
  
• Take a leadership role in the Asia pacific region in regard to health and basic education

He also committed to attending the MDG review meeting at the UN in September 2008 and joining the MDG Call to Action campaign of governments and major companies to increase efforts to achieve the MDGs.

In 2008 Make Poverty History is campaigning to improve maternal and child health in developing countries. There are many ways you can find out about this issue and get involved.

Pledge your Support
Take Action
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Solutions and Policy

What's it about?

The world is now at the half-way point to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which set out an internationally agreed plan to halve global poverty by 2015. These goals have underlined the importance of improving health, and particularly the health of mothers and children, as an integral part of poverty reduction. Childbirth is a central event in the lives of families and the development of communities, representing the well-being of society and its potential for the future. Far more can and must be done by both developing and developed countries to ensure that maternal health is significantly improved prior to, and post childbirth, and to reduce child mortality.

Yet, in the 21st Century, we still allow well over 10 million children and half a million mothers to die each year, although most of these deaths are preventable. In our region of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, 16 out of 22 developing countries are off track for the child mortality MDG, seven are off track for the maternal mortality goal. This means that almost half a million children in Australia’s region die every year from preventable causes and over 24,000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth.

The Make Poverty History campaign is working in 2008 and beyond for more urgent government and citizen action to make every mother and child count so that we no longer live in a world where:

• One in every twelve children in Cambodia dies before their fifth birthday
• One hundred times more women lose their lives during childbirth in Timor Leste than in Australia.*

If Australia does its fair share we have the potential to save, on average, the lives of 75,000 children and 15,000 women each year.**

Take 30 seconds NOW to add your name to our child and maternal health pledge of support.

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* World Health Report 2005; Make every mother and child count, World Health Organisation
** Make Poverty History and World Vision 2007 Proposal for an Australian Regional Health and Education Initiative