News
26 September 2007
Deliver Now! Saving 77 Million BY 2015
Hundreds gathered in Bryant Park to mark the launch of the Deliver Now for Women and Children global campaign to combat maternal and child deaths worldwide. To support these efforts, Liya joined talk show host Ricki Lake, the First Lady of the Republic of Zambia and multi Grammy-winning artist Chaka Khan in a rally and call to action. Leading partners in the campaign including the Clinton Foundation, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, The World Health Organization, UNFPA and governments like Norway, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have pledged their commitment to put an end to the 10 million deaths of mothers and children each year.
In her role as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, Liya implored the crowd to support the global promise to deliver now and to become strong advocates for change.
“ I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility as a New Yorker and as an Ethiopian woman. I was lucky to be pregnant in New York where I received dozens of ultrasounds with the latest technology. But in my native land, 1 in 14 women will die giving birth.”
The shocking statistics underscored in the campaign point to a lack of resources and basic health needs not being met in many parts of the world, in particular eastern and sub-Saharan Africa where a pregnant woman has the highest risk in the world of dying during child birth. Liya stressed the importance of early obstetric care to prevent these deaths in her country and around the world.
“The overwhelming majority of these deaths can be prevented with greater access to basic health resources,” she said.
Deliver Now is a major new advocacy drive and global alliance of more than 170 partners to eliminate maternal and child deaths and improve health around the world.
Every minute of every day, a woman dies needlessly during pregnancy or childbirth. Every three seconds a child under five dies. Four million newborns die in their first four weeks of life, 3 million of those in the first week. And with 42 percent of pregnant women around the world experiencing a complication, up to 15 percent of which are life-threatening, protecting the lives of women and children during pregnancy, childbirth and beyond is one of the most critical goals facing the world today.
Most of these deaths can be prevented through greater political commitment, improved health care and increased investment. At least US$9 billion a year is needed to meet the basic health care needs of women and children. As of 2004, only US$2 billion - less than a quarter of what is needed - was available to support such services in developing countries.
As a leading member of the Deliver Now campaign, the Liya Kebede Foundation will play a key role in promoting the new "Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals " (highlighting the goals 4,5 and 6), unveiled September 26, 2007, by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. The launch of Deliver Now also follows the recent creation of the International Health Partnership in London by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other world leaders.
The Deliver Now campaign launched in New York on September 26 amidst rallies in Manhattan and the Bronx and awareness-raising events across the city built popular support for the drive throughout the week. This will be followed by other global events, such as the high-profile conference Women Deliver in London October 18-20 (www.womendeliver.org), and the roll out of intensive local programs in individual countries, beginning in 2008 in India and Tanzania.