New Norway-India programme to save mothers and children
7 February 2008
Jaipur India 7 February 2008 - The Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg has announced a joint health programme with India focusing of reducing child and maternal mortality rates in one district in Rajasthan's Bharatpur district.
Norway’s cooperation with India is part of The Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals. The global campaign consists of a number of countries, UN organizations, NGOs and institutions including The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health and the Gates Foundation. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has said Norway over a period of ten years will grant one billion US dollars to efforts to improve maternal and child health.
Norway has announced the cooperation with India on a programme to pay poor women to give birth in clinics rather than at home. This practice has been spearheaded in other districts in India and has proven extremely effective. “It is encouraging that innovative methods can produce impressive results within a short timeframe," said Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. " A new approach in India demonstrates that many women choose a safe delivery in a health clinic rather than giving birth at home. ” Preliminary numbers show that this leads to a reduction in maternal deaths by nearly a half among poor women. These measures will be promoted by Norway in other countries as well.
By 2009 the aim is to save half a million children annually through improved health services, and to raise the level of routine vaccination of children. The partnership will support and stimulate the accomplishment of India’s national health programme. Resources are channeled through multilateral organizations and local institutions.
“Every third second a child dies and every minute a mother dies in childbirth. This is unacceptable and the world must act to change this,” Stoltenberg says. “These are simple measures which produce great result. It is key to spend health funds so that as many as possible can use the health facilities,” the Prime Minister says.
The UN is to conduct an independent analysis of this approach and the preliminary results, to evaluate the possibility of applying these methods in other countries.
During his visit to India in 2005 Mr. Stoltenberg and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to cooperate on reaching the UN Millennium Goals four and five; to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. Norway’s contribution to this programme is nearly USD 100 million over five years, directed at five states in India. These states represent sixty per cent of the country’s child mortality and the majority of Indian mothers dying in childbirth. Today 2.1 million children under the age of five die every year in India and 100,000 women die from maternal causes.