Global Campaign for the Health MDGs

Extract from the Global Campaign for the Health MDGS document:

Building momentum - the beginning of the Campaign

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on health by 2015 will be difficult. Although progress has been made, many countries are off track. There is a real danger that the appalling mortality figures for children and pregnant women will continue - unless countries, agencies, NGOs and partners renew their efforts.

This is why the Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals is being launched. It is a growing campaign encompassing several interrelated initiatives. All of them aim to accelerate progress on the health MDGs, and they have many features in common. But
each also has its own approach, and focuses on a different aspect of the problem: even though some progress has been noted, why do mortality figures remain unacceptably high in most developing countries?

The Campaign is unfolding rapidly and builds on the work of the Highlevel Panel on UN System-wide Coherence. On 5 September 2007, in London, Prime Ministers Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom and Jens Stoltenberg of Norway launched the International Health Partnership (IHP). This aims to improve the co-ordination of support for national
health plans, and brings together international health organisations and major donor countries, as well as developing countries.

On 26 September 2007, in New York, Jens Stoltenberg with other global leaders launched the Campaign with a special emphasis on women and children, in accordance with MDGs 4 and 5. The Campaign signals a commitment to finding better ways of achieving value for money and ensuring that the most vulnerable groups have access to essential services. The Providing for Health initiative, supported by Germany and France, will play an important role in this.

The day after the New York launch, some of the largest development assistance donors met in Berlin to commit new finances for MDG 6 at the High-level Meeting of the second replenishment conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. And in October, the Women Deliver global conference focused on the health of women, mothers and newborn babies.

This is just the beginning, and new actions and new commitments will follow in the days and months ahead. A good start has been made, a lot remains to be done.