World: Parliaments Scale up Efforts to Secure Women and Children’s Health

By Lilian Museka

KAMPALA---Leaders of nearly 120 national parliaments attending a major meeting in Kampala Uganda last week resolved to prioritize action and resources for improving the health of women and children.

Delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) passed a resolution calling for all member-parliaments to take all possible measures to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 by2015.MDG 4 aims to reduce child deaths around the world by two thirds by 2015, while MDG 5 aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters by the same year.

This is the first time that the world’s parliaments, acting through the IPU, have passed a resolution on this issue. The debate on the resolution featured interventions from more than 50 member-delegations, associate members and observers, including Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, Sweden and Indonesia.

The resolution was initiated by parliamentarians from Uganda in April 2011 at the IPU Assembly in Panama, and proceeded from a September 2011 special report, ‘Access to Health as a Basic Right: the Role of Parliaments in Addressing Key Challenges to Securing the Health of Women and Children.’

Speaking during the Assembly, Ms. Paula Turyahikayo, one of the three IPU Rapporteurs responsible for developing the resolution, said: "The adoption of the resolution on MDGs 4 and 5 in Kampala is a major achievement. We hope that now all the stakeholders will come in and strengthen efforts by parliaments that make it possible to implement the resolution in all countries where MDGs 4 and 5 are doing badly." She also noted that “strengthened partnership between parliamentarians, civil society organizations, media, the private sector and all other relevant actors will be key to the implementation of this resolution.”

MrMartin Chungong, Director of Programmes at the Inter-Parliamentary Union noted that “this resolution is welcome and will go a long way in structuring the engagement of parliamentarians in national efforts to improve the health of women and children.  The Inter-Parliamentary Union intends to support this effort through the development of tools that parliamentarians will be able to use in their efforts to promote accountability for better results.

The resolution gives the Inter-Parliamentary Union a renewed mandate to work with its partners to strengthen parliamentary capacity in support of maternal, newborn and child health.  We are committed to that mandate.  We urge development partners, notably CSOs, to support parliamentarians in their efforts through capacity building and the provision of evidence when required.” 

Delegates at the Kampala meeting called upon parliamentarians to scrutinize all government health interventions to ensure they are evidence-based, conform to international human rights standards, and are responsive to regular and transparent performance reviews.

Maternal and child mortality rates remain unacceptably high especially in Africa and most countries (in Africa) are not on track to achieve MDGs 4 and 5.  About 7.6 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 2010, with 41 per cent dying in their first month. In 2008, 358,000 women died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.