Pressing the G8 to Make Real Their Pledges to Save Women's Lives

"If it were your own mother or wife or sister giving birth, would you want her to give birth alone – or with a trained professional at her side?"
14.3 Million Midwives, Nurses and Doctors Health Workers Petition to G8

Their appeal could not be ignored: Why are women today still dying needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth? Their solution is straightforward: Invest in health workers with midwifery skills and ensure every woman's access to lifesaving care.

And, the G8 leaders heard the appeal and the solution again and again and again.

The International Confederation of Midwives, International Pediatricians Association, International Council of Nurses, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics and WRA released a petition on behalf of their 14.3 million members, pledging to "do our utmost to ensure that those women who we can reach birth safely" and asking G8 heads of state to "deliver the extra $10 billion per year to build the health systems needed to cut maternal mortality by 75% by 2015."

WRA Delegations delivered the Health Workers Petition in London to Prime Minister Gordon Brown; in Washington, DC to Melanne Verveer, U.S. Department of State Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues; in Tokyo to Prime Minister Taro Aso; in Ottawa, with Make Poverty History to a representative of Prime Minister Stephen Harper; and to the Italian and Canadian Embassies in Bangladesh, Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

WRA Delegation (l to r): Prof. A Chattopadhyay of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; Gwen Chitundu, Midwife of the Royal London Hospital; Bill Nighy, Gill Barber, Midwife and Chair of Royal College of Nursing's Midwifery Society; Brigid McConville, Director of the WRA-UK; and Dr. G. K. Siddiqui of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologist and Chair of Pakistan Liaison Group
Saatchi and Saatchi London and Freud Communications joined with Comic Relief and WRA to create a full-page advert released by global maternal health champions including Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Emma Thompson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Yoko Ono, Wendi Murdoch, Christiane Amanpour, Annie Lennox and JK Rowling and published in The Globe and Mail (Canada), Die Welt (Germany), La Stampa (Italy), Novaya Gazeta (Russia), The Times and The Evening Standard (UK) and Wall Street Journal (US). The adverts, showing the G8 heads of state with their mothers, as in a family photo album, simply ask them to make their mothers proud, by working together to honour previous pledges of action. Framed copies of the adverts were hand-delivered to the G8 spouses on the eve of the Summit while projections of photos of the mothers and sons shone across Rome, attracting attention of passers-by and reaching as far as readers of The Times (South Africa), thanks to a Times editor offering "the musings of a mom" with a photo of Ana and Barack Obama on Rome's Colosseum on her blog.


Sierra Leone First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma wrote an op-ed – "It's Time to Make Mothers a Priority" – published in Asahi Shimon, Japan's second largest circulation newspaper and on The Huffington Post (US). Read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sia-nyama-koroma/its-time-to-make-mothers_b_225413.html

WRA, in collaboration with GHP3 (University of Southhampton) and Immpact (University of Aberdeen) launched the Atlas of Birth with release on YouTube of Birth and Death, a short animated film decrying the scandalous lack of attention to "the greatest health inequity of the 21st Century" and calling upon people everywhere to hold the G8 to their promises to take action. View it here: http://www.youtube.com/whiteribbonalliance

WRA Global Ambassador Naomi Campbell made public her personal appeal to President Silvio Berlusconi saying "There are eight people in the world who can stop this tragedy and you are the host." (view it) and La Stampa published her op-ed – "Millions of women are dying needlessly" – on the first day of the G8 Summit. Click here to read it: http://www.lastampa.it/redazione/cmsSezioni/africa/200907articoli/45219girata.asp

The World Food Programme, in collaboration with WRA, hosted an event for the G8 spouses at their Rome headquarters with recreation of an emergency food distribution center and a childbirth clinic as reinforcement of the main-stage forum – "Saving Lives: Women on the Frontlines" – and their message that whereas children are the most vulnerable to hunger, it is their mothers who feed them and must have quality antenatal care, safe delivery and support after babies are born. Sarah Brown, who at last count had 424,000 people following her through Twitter, agreed, writing on her blog that "saving the life of a mother is at the heart of saving her children, her community and her environment and of achieving all of the Millennium Development Goals."

photo: WFPJ/Rein Skullerud

Whether to make their mothers proud or to advance progress to save the lives of mothers and newborns, the G8 leaders again acknowledged the need for "accelerated action" on MDG 4 and 5 and recommitted to address the scarcity of health workers in developing countries, especially in Africa.

We look forward to world leaders going further during the September meetings of the G20 and United Nations General Assembly. Join us as we mobilize to press for specific investments to ensure all women access to quality care so no woman anywhere risks her life to give birth. To find out more and get involved, please go to www.whiteribbonalliance.org

Best regards,
Betsy McCallon
Deputy Director, White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood
bmccallon@whiteribbonalliance.org
202-777-0933

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