Harper's maternal, child health speech 'political opportunism': Stephen Lewis

Despite being a major part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's speech to the World Economic Forum last week, the government's plan to champion action on maternal and child health is still a work in progress, CIDA Minister Bev Oda said Monday.

Meanwhile, former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS Stephen Lewis has described Mr. Harper's speech as "a piece of crass, political opportunism" amid accusations the government is late to the issue, and sees women as mothers and little else.

Last Thursday, Mr. Harper outlined his goals and priorities for Canada's presidency of the G8 in a speech to state and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. He noted that in developing countries, more than 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy and 9 million children die before the age of five.

"As president of the G8, Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world's most vulnerable regions," he said. "It is therefore time to mobilize our friends and partners to do something for those who can do little for themselves, to replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will."

Reducing the number of children who die before the age of five is the fourth Millennium Development Goal, while doing the same for mothers during pregnancy or childbirth is the fifth goal. They are the two MDGs that are furthest from being achieved by 2015.

Ms. Oda said the government has had its eye on these targets for some time, and argued that they fit neatly into CIDA's priority focus on children and youth, though nutrition for infants and mothers also relates to food security. She also said the aid agency has experience working on the issue, while consultations she had with select NGOs and other G8 countries indicated an interest in the area.

"So there were a number of factors that came together to say this would be a good initiative for Canada to take," she said, "and it also shows we can move this area ahead with a concerted effort."

Ms. Oda said the plan now is to hold more consultations with an expanded list of stakeholders, particularly obstetricians and pediatricians in Canada who have worked internationally, as well as multilateral organizations, developing countries and G8 partners "to see what they had been supporting in the past and how and where they might chose to support the general initiative." She also plans to review projects currently supported by CIDA "to find out which ones are most effective, which ones are really making a difference."

"So there's still again an expansion of consultations and getting input," Ms. Oda said. "So as to the specifics of an initiative, there's a lot of work that I still have to do."

Leading or following?

Last September, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick hosted a major event at the UN General Assembly that saw more than $5 billion (US) pledged to a new global Consensus for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. The consensus set out a 10-point action plan to tackle the two Millennium Development Goals.

In addition, other donor countries like Norway and the Netherlands have already pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to address maternal and child health issues in developing countries.

A former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis has served as deputy director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and from 2001 to 2006 was UN secretary-general Kofi Annan's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Lewis said any help tackling maternal and child help is welcome. However, he was critical of the fact Mr. Harper made no specific commitments during his speech in Davos.

"You don't just throw in the phrase 'maternal and child health,'" Mr. Lewis said. "You actually spend some time setting out what you intend to do and putting a dollar figure beside it. And because there was none that, it's not that I can't take it seriously, it's just that it has to be taken cynically."

He also noted that other countries have been extremely active on the issue over the past three years, and his perception is the Conservative government "stumbled on it and finds it politically advantageous to pursue it at the G8."

"My objection is that you make an announcement without any dollar sign," he said, "without any appreciable planning, without any sense for how long Canada's commitment lasts, and what research and work has gone into laying the groundwork for it. And you pretend that somehow you're leading the world.

"I just thought that for Stephen Harper to pretend, which was clearly what was intended, to pretend that he was somehow grabbing hold of something new and compelling when in fact he was grabbing hold of something terribly compelling but which others have worked on valiantly and determinedly for years, it just left a sour taste in the mouth of those who know what's happening on the ground in countries."

Equally troubling to Mr. Lewis is that the stated focus avoids many of the root causes of maternal and child deaths, particularly gender equality—which is actually another Millennium Development Goal.

"To deal with maternal health is also easy for Canada because it avoids all of the issues with which women are engaged beyond being mothers," he said.

"I don't think you'll ever overcome maternal mortality and you'll have a great deal of difficulty with child health until equality or something approaching equality is achieved. And women don't lead lives simply as child bearers. They lead whole lives where discrimination and hardship are felt in a whole world of other ways."

According to sources, CIDA's efforts over the past decade to improve gender equality were reviewed a few years ago and an internal evaluation was released internally in April 2008. However, while the agency has been developing a plan to improve those activities, nothing has emerged.

Meanwhile, the government has quietly done away with the term "gender equality" and instead adopted "equality between men and women." Observers have been concerned by these developments, questioning the government's commitment to the ideal.

Ms. Oda said the gender equality plan has not has been delivered to her office yet, but that Canada has been recognized for its leadership on work on "gender issues," which remain a cross-cutting theme for CIDA's work.

In addition, she took issue with Mr. Lewis's characterization of the prime minister's speech and argued the government is not coming late to the game.

"What we're trying to say is where can we put our efforts together, work in a co-ordinated fashion and actually see results in 2015?" she said. "The thing here is that other governments and other fora would come out with a big number and announce a big fund but then [not] followed up.

"So it's not a matter of announcing the dollars. The dollars will be firmed up once we have a consensus and everyone can sort of give us feedback on what they have been doing in the past and what they believe is going to be required to see results in 2015."

lee@embassymag.ca

http://embassymag.ca/page/printpage/maternal-02-03-2010