DFID launches “Framework for Results”
1 JANUARY 2011 | LONDON - The British Government unveiled a landmark plan on 31 December 31 2010 for improving reproductive, maternal and newborn health that could save thousands and impact millions of lives worldwide. Two strategic priorities shape the plan – to prevent unintended pregnancies by enabling women and girls to choose whether, when and how many children they have, and to ensure pregnancy and childbirth are safe for mothers and babies. The Framework for Results outlines a commitment to women’s and newborn’s health to:
- save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies by 2015
- enable at least 10 million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015, contributing to a wider global goal of 100 million
- prevent more than 5 million unintended pregnancies
- support at least 2 million safe deliveries, ensuring long lasting improvements to maternity services, particularly for the poorest 40%.
To meet these commitments to saving women and babies in pregnancy and childbirth, the UK will prioritize efforts in more than 17 countries across the world accounting for around two thirds of all maternal deaths. These efforts include scaling up family planning, focusing on adolescent girls and the poorest, and improving quality of and access to healthcare, including safe abortion.
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said: "Every day over two thousand people die from malaria and almost a thousand women die during pregnancy or childbirth. These deaths are all the more tragic because the vast majority could have been prevented. "We will be relentless in driving down this terrible loss of life by hugely increasing our efforts, basing our actions on evidence; reaching more people with the right interventions; and by putting girls and women front and centre of our development work. "Britain has a proud history of helping those in need. We are making our support go further by shifting the development agenda to one of accountability, impact and innovation – starting with malaria and maternal health."