Watching Melinda’s Announcement at the Women Deliver Conference

Jun 7th, 2010 3:30 PM UTC
By Erin Hohlfelder

Today, I’ve had the privilege of attending the Women Deliver Conference in DC alongside over 3,500 delegates from 140 countries. In just the few first hours of the conference, I’ve heard messages from a number of inspiring global leaders and health experts—from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Secretary Clinton to friends of ONE, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Yvonne Chaka Chaka—all of whom spoke with intelligence and conviction about the power of women and the need to catalyze new momentum towards the achievement of MDGs 4 and 5.

But nothing spurs excitement in the midst of 3 days of speeches and panels quite like cold, hard cash-and Melinda Gates announced today that the Gates Foundation is committing $1.5 billion over the next five years to support family planning, maternal and child health, and nutrition programs in developing countries. That’s in addition to the $10 billion the Foundation just recently pledged to catalyze what they call the “Decade of Vaccines.” Talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

In the lead-up to her big announcement, Melinda spoke about her recent visit to India, where she witnessed the joyous birth of a healthy baby girl, Durga. She talked about the overwhelming sense of hope she felt, and even recalled the birth of her own three children (something she rarely discusses), but then reminded us that for too many women around the world, childbirth is a time of pain, fear, and sorrow. Then, she transitioned and reminded us that progress is also possible. On another stop in her enviable travel schedule, Melinda traveled to Malawi in January – a country that for decades languished behind others and had some of the world’s worst maternal and child mortality rates. Thanks to a combination of renewed political will and investments in immunizations and health workers, Malawi has seen a precipitous drop in the number of children that die each year, and is now on track to achieve MDG 4. Indeed, we have living proof that investments in maternal and child health are working and are saving lives.

As much as we might like to think that $1.5 billion will solve the problem, it won’t — in fact, many estimate we will need at least $12 billion annually to really “solve” needless maternal and child deaths. But the Gates Foundation’s latest commitment should lay the groundwork for the world’s biggest economies this summer as they meet in Canada to discuss—and, we hope, robustly fund—a maternal and child health initiative so that at the next Women Deliver Conference three years from now, we have more stories like Durga’s to propel us forward with hope.

TAGS: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Maternal and Child Health, Melinda Gates