Washington D.C. – As G8 Development Ministers leave Halifax, Nova Scotia today, global anti-poverty organization ONE called the development meeting “productive but must follow up in June with a clear, tangible action plan to improve child and maternal health.” Emphasizing the need for a plan, Canadian ONE member Jana Henderson today personally delivered a petition, signed by 10,191 ONE members, to Development Minster Bev Oda asking for a results-based, time-bound plan come out of this week’s meeting.

“It is encouraging that the G8 Development Ministers will leave Halifax to advise world leaders on targeted initiatives to address child and maternal health.” said Olly Buston, ONE’s European Director. “Though light on details, this meeting will hopefully set the table for robust, specific, and coordinated commitments to be made in June.”

“Real progress happens with real commitments,” said Buston. “To effectively improve child and maternal health as well as other poverty-fighting measures, the G8 cannot simply issue a feel good consensus statement but must make concrete commitments to ensure that all are held accountable in delivering smart, effective assistance. With Canada’s leadership and public commitment to this issue, 2010 can be the year when the G8 finally takes action.”

Despite substantial improvements in global health in recent years, progress on maternal and child health is still far from where it should be. The G8 Muskoka Summit is an important time for these issues to be highlighted, as global leaders will meet at the United Nations in September to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With MDGs on maternal and child health being some of the most off-track, a robust plan from the G8 on this issue could galvanize the international community.

In line with Canadian Development Minister Bev Oda’s goals for the Halifax meeting, including reaching a consensus on a G8 child and maternal health initiative in an effective, sustainable and accountable fashion, ONE is outlining its recommendations to the G8 in the lead up to their meeting in Huntsville, Ontario in June 2010. In order to effectively make a substantial difference in the lives of families in the world’s poorest regions, the G8’s action strategy should:

• Be results-oriented – Canada and other G8 countries should commit to an action plan that combines high-impact interventions and long-term investments in local capacity with the ultimate goal of universal access to skilled birth attendants, universal access to bed nets, vaccinations and anti-malarial drugs, and support comprehensive education campaigns about pregnancy to women of child bearing age. Any initiative should also have the goal of eliminating mother-to-children transmission of HIV by 2015.

• Mobilize new resources – Canada and other G8 countries should double bilateral Overseas Development Assistance to maternal, newborn and child health from approximately 4 billion in 2010 to USD $8 billion by 2013. In addition, the G8 should commit to full replenishment of multilateral organizations already working to improve maternal and child health including GAVI (Global Alliance of Vaccines and Immunizations) and the Global Fund (which are both heading into critical replenishment years) and the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank.

• Emphasize integration, coordination and country ownership – The G8 and other donors should commit to working with developing countries to devise technically sound national health plans through their internal mechanisms and the private sector to coordinate support and mobilize resources. The G8 should also support and encourage efforts by developing country governments to transparently mobilize domestic resources for improving maternal, newborn and child health and the expansion of affordable access to quality care.

• Ensure accountability based on the TRACK principles – Canada and other G8 countries should use this initiative to pilot a robust G8 focus on accountability in line with the accountability matrix and the TRACK principles, which calls for new promises to be Transparent, Results-orients and Accountable, while also articulating any Conditionalities and mapping out a strategy to ensure that will be Kept.