Women Deliver, held this week in Washington, DC, has opened with a bang – a $1.5 billion pledge over 5 years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focusing on maternal and child health. The NY Times writes: “Ms. Gates said much of the next $1.5 billion would go to programs in India, Ethiopia and other countries where mothers and children have relatively high death rates. The money will pay for projects like training health workers, developing improved antibiotics for infections in newborns and finding better ways to treat hemorrhage in mothers.”
The pledge signals a shift in focus and alignment with the recent statements on the Obama administration’s Global Health Initiative, which is also placing emphasis on the health of mothers and babies. (Read Serra Sippel of the Huffington Post’s analysis of the GHI, which she says “is the first government-sponsored initiative that promotes a woman-centered approach to policy and programming.”)
