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Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

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Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

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Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

Canada's Leadership

Focus on three paths
Focus on 10 countries
Partnerships with multilateral, global and Canadian organizations

Improving the health of mothers, newborns and children and reducing the number of preventable deaths are top priorities for CIDA. Each year hundreds of thousands of women die during pregnancy or childbirth and 6.9 million children die before reaching the age of five. Many of these deaths can be prevented by proven, cost-effective, evidence-based interventions.

Canada is leading a global effort—the Muskoka Initiative—to mobilize global action to reduce maternal and infant mortality and improve the health of mothers and children in the world's poorest countries. Canada is providing $1.1 billion in new funding between 2010 and 2015. Canada is also providing $1.75 billion in ongoing spending on maternal and child health programming, a total contribution of $2.85 billion.

In November 2010, Minister Oda outlined how Canada's $2.85 billion contribution through CIDA to the Muskoka Initiative will be organized. CIDA's maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) funding follows three integrated paths, focuses on ten countries and involves multilateral, global and Canadian partners.

Focus on three paths

Strengthening health systems to improve service delivery to maternal, newborn, and child health at the local level by training more health workers and increasing access to adequately equipped local health centres. CIDA is working with country partners to:

Support national plans and priorities regarding maternal, newborn, and child health
Fill gaps in health systems (for example, by training more health workers, by increasing access to health facilities, by ensuring health facilities and personnel are sufficiently equipped, and by implementing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms)
Expand access to services

Reducing the burden of diseases that are killing mothers and children. CIDA is supporting the provision of medicines, vaccines, and actions needed to prevent and treat the prevalent diseases and illnesses that are the main causes of maternal and child mortality.

Improving nutrition by increasing access to healthful and nutritious food and essential micronutrient supplements that improve and save lives. CIDA supports initiatives that improve nutritional health by:

Improving infant and child feeding practices
Promoting exclusive breast-feeding
Providing ready-to-use therapeutic foods and key vitamins and minerals, including vitamin A supplements and iodized salt

Focus on 10 countries

CIDA's geographic investments focus on countries with high child and maternal morbidity and mortality rates that have demonstrated they can make progress on maternal, newborn, and child health. In these countries, CIDA works to increase access to health centres at the local level and ensure its sustainability over the long term. CIDA focuses its efforts on the following 10 countries:

Partnerships with multilateral, global and Canadian organizations

With multilateral and global partners, such as UN agencies, Canada works in countries where the need is greatest across the three paths of the initiative. Canada continues to support:

The Micronutrient Initiative, which delivers essential vitamin and mineral supplements around the world, saving lives and ensuring children get the chance to reach their full potential ($75 million over five years).
The GAVI Alliance, which works to distribute vaccines against pneumonia and diarrheal disease—two of the biggest killers of young children ($50 million over five years).
Health 4, a collaborative mechanism established by the World Health Organization, the UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund, and the World Bank, to improve coordinated support to national maternal and newborn health programs ($50 million over five years).
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to safeguard substantial achievements in developing countries already made and to expand prevention, care, and treatment for the most vulnerable to the three diseases ($41.4 million over three years).

Canadian partners engage the expertise of health practitioners and extensive networks of local civil society organizations to address local and national health priorities. Through community-based efforts to reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality, they can extend the reach of national health services to rural and underserved areas. In many high burden countries, civil society organizations provide the main platform by which to reach vulnerable groups and are able to respond in a timely and effective way to needs identified by communities.

Launched on November 2, 2010, the Muskoka Initiative Partnership Program is providing $75 million over five years to partner-driven projects that deliver concrete development results in countries with high rates of maternal and child morbidity and mortality.

For more information on specific MNCH projects supported by CIDA in various countries and regions around the world, please visit the Project Browser.

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