Her Royal Highness, Princess Anne
Patron of University of London and Save the Children
Event: Countdown to 2015 Conference 2005
London, UK, 13 december 2005
I am supposedly talking about the impact of poverty on child health. I have to take issue with that before I continue. Some people's definition could be simply about the availability of cash, and that is only part of the problem. I think there is a real difference between poverty in terms of cash in rural communities as opposed to urban communities, and I know that Save the Children has been working in both those communities.
The definition of poverty and how it applies here is a very complicated equation. But there are those who simply do not have the choice, and that is perhaps more critical because they don't have as individuals the choice to access health services, or indeed they don't have the choice because the health services do not exist for that sector. Possibly because they're simply too far away from it, possibly because there aren't enough trained people to supply that service, and possibly because the sheer weight of numbers mitigates again the choice of being available to them.
I think this conference is a very important one. This conference has to convince a whole range of donors and interested parties that getting the health provision for mothers and children right, prevention and cure, that in itself is the best investment in health care for the whole population, and it will only come through better cooperation and better coordination. Patently it very much starts here, and I wish this conference very well on that basis. I sincerely hope that if the Save the Children keeps me around for a bit longer, I will not be hearing the same things come around yet again, in another, well, not 30 years time, but in another 10 years time. Thank you.