Women and Children First’s Policy Work
Submission to the International Development Committee Inquiry regarding DFID’s Programme in Bangladesh
This submission was co-submitted by Women and Children First (WCF), The Diabetic Association of Bangladesh (BADAS) and the Centre for International Health and Development (CIHD) at UCL’s Institute of Child Health. The following key issues for the inquiry were addressed: the appropriate size and scope of DFID’s programme in Bangladesh; DFID’s strategy for reducing poverty and inequality, including gender inequality; and the role of community-led initiatives in reducing poverty and increasing access to basic services. Specific recommendations for DFID were included.
To read the full submission, please click here.
White Paper Submission 2009
Later this year DFID will publish a new White Paper on International Development setting out how the UK Government aims to continue helping deliver better lives for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. As stated in DFID’s consultation document 'Eliminating World Poverty: Assuring our Common Future' a world shocked by recent global events means fighting global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals must continue to be at the heart of this mission. Core areas such as tackling HIV/ AIDS and malaria and continuing to put gender equality at the heart of the agenda must also be continued. Comments on how to further refine the existing agenda, for example on supporting basic services such as health and education were needed and Women and Children First submitted the following recommendations:
Recommendations
1. The UK government must ensure that women and children do not pay for the current financial crisis, and that it is not used as a reason not to invest in the services that could save their lives. The UK government must follow through on commitments made to improving maternal, newborn and child health for example at the UN High Level Event on the MDGs in September 2008. The UK government should ensure that aid flows for maternal, newborn and child health are adequate, predictable and long term.
2. The UK government should embrace the principles of community participation in health systems and support resilient and sustainable community responses to heath challenges such as women’s groups. Where evidence for successful community mobilisation and women’s groups exists the UK government should financially assist scale up, including in new locations and research into other existing and innovative community based approaches to improve maternal, newborn and child health. This investment should include better maternal, newborn and child health data collection and the implementation of research findings.
3. The UK government should ensure that progress made against MDGs 4 and 5 are at the core of UK government development policy and that they factor more strongly in UK government support for national health plans, particularly in countries with the greatest maternal, newborn and child health needs, targeting especially sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The UK government should push for the progress made against MDG 5 to be used as a litmus test for the health of a nation’s overall health system against which governments in the North and South can be held to account.
Women and Children First's submission to the UK government white paper on international development: Eliminating World Poverty: Assuring our Common Future, is available to read in full by clicking here.
Input into the APPG on Population, Development and Reproductive Health Report on Maternal Morbidity: Better off Dead? (May 2009)
The UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health held Hearings into Maternal Morbidity on 8th – 9th December 2008, in response to members requests for information, on this often neglected subject. Currently, there is no global definition of Maternal Morbidity, but millions of women and young girls suffer injury and disability. They live in shame and isolation, frequently abandoned by their husbands and excluded from economic and social lives, as a direct result of pregnancy and childbirth. Some of the most devastating injuries discussed in the report include obstetric fistula, prolapsed uterus, infertility and depression – all easily preventable, at a very low cost. The report , “Better off Dead?”, was launched in the House of Commons on 6 May 2009 in collaboration with the White Ribbon Alliance, IPPF & MSI and in celebration of International Day of the Midwife. The Guest of Honour was Sarah Brown, Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance with Special Guest, Geri Halliwell, UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador.
The report can be downloaded here.
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