President
Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete meets His Highness the Aga Khan in Toronto
during a meeting on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Looking on the
left is the Canadian Prime Minister the Righ Honorable Stephen
Harper.(photo by Freddy Maro).
His
Highness the Aga Khan today praised Canada’s global leadership in
efforts to improve maternal, neonatal and child health and stressed the
importance of innovative and community-based approaches in meeting the
challenge which he described as “one of the highest priorities on the
global development agenda.”
The
Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and founder of the
Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) made the remarks in a speech at the
Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Summit in Toronto, Canada – a
three-day high level gathering of heads of state and top health
officials, organised by Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper.
“Leadership
and partnership – those are words that come quickly to mind as I salute
our hosts today – and as I greet the distinguished leaders and partners
in this audience,” said the Aga Khan. “I am here, as well, because of
my enormous respect for the leadership of the Government of Canada in
addressing this challenge,” he added.
The
Summit, “Saving Every Mother, Saving Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach”,
brings together a number of partners in the global fight to address
maternal, newborn and child health in developing countries. It follows
the June 2010 G8 summit (held in Muskoka, Ontario), when Canada led G8
and non-G8 countries to commit CAD $7.3B (for 2010 to 2015) to MNCH.
The
“Muskoka Initiative” aims to accelerate progress towards the
achievement of two of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
agreed to in 2000: MDG 4 (reduce child mortality by two-thirds from 1990
to 2015) and MDG 5 (reduce maternal mortality by three quarters from
1990 to 2015).
In
his address to the Summit, the Aga Khan said that in order to be
effective, the approaches to health care should be long-term,
community-oriented and use innovative financial models that make health
care provision sustainable. He also underlined the need to focus on the
broad spectrum of health care, not only high-impact primary, but also
secondary and tertiary care and to look at health care within the
context of a broader development agenda.
He
emphasised the need to reach those who are hardest to reach by using new
telecommunications tools in transmitting diagnostic information such as
high quality radiological images and lab results.
The
Aga Khan cited the AKDN’s involvement in the remote Badakhshan region
of Afghanistan where the network has built up, virtually from scratch, a
system that today includes nearly 400 health workers, 35 health centres
and two hospitals, serving over 400,000 people. Its community midwifery
school has graduated over 100 young women. He noted that the effort has
greatly reduced infant mortality and child-birth related deaths.
While
mentioning considerable progress in the maternal and child care area,
the Aga Khan also cautioned that efforts to improve maternal and
neonatal care were often uneven and that much more needed to be done.
“For
most of the world, science has completely transformed the way life
begins – and the risks associated with childbirth. But enormous gaps
still exist. These gaps are not the result of fate – they are not
inevitable. They can be changed – and changed dramatically,” he said.
The
Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has been engaged in MNCH for nearly
a century. The Kharadar maternity home in Karachi, for example, was
established in 1924. Today, the Network’s MNCH activities span 12
countries in Central Asia (Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan),
South Asia (Pakistan, India), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Tanzania,
Uganda, Mozambique, and Mali) and the Middle East (Syria, Egypt).
Canada
has supported AKDN’s MNCH activity in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Mali. In Afghanistan,
Canada has funded programmes for the construction of the new Bamyan
Provincial Hospital, as well as the training of health professionals and
the implementation of community health programmes. In Mali, Mozambique,
Pakistan, Tanzania, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, it has helped
strengthen AKDN’s health system by improving service delivery, training
health professionals, and delivering community-based health promotion
and prevention campaigns
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