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Putting children at the centre of health care
Partnership Report
11 May 2009
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As leaders from around the world focus on the global financial crisis, delegates at the Sixty-Second World Health Assembly will meet to address a far more lethal crisis: a health crisis that is claiming the lives of 9.2 million children and half a million mothers each year.
Health is a cornerstone of economic growth and social development, as well as a fundamental human right.
But just as improvements in health have a role to play in fostering economic growth, so contractions of economies at the scale being predicted in the current global financial crisis can have an adverse impact on health.
Current estimates from the World Bank are that an additional 200,000 to 400,000 children per year may die between 2009 and 2015 as a result of the financial crisis - a stark reminder of the fragility of recent gains in addressing child mortality and of the need to ensure more is done to address child health.
Child mortality is not a side effect of economic under-development, it is the direct effect of a lack of political will to address the issue effectively.
Convincing governments that good health means good economics, and subsequently good politics, can be a challenge even in a stable economic climate.
Within the context of the current global financial crisis ministries of health must present their governments with evidence-based, cost-effective primary health care plans that prioritise women and children, placing them at the heart of health care, and deliver accelerated progress towards the health-related MDGs.
This briefing paper urges health ministers to show leadership to ensure a co-ordinated response across different government departments. Families and communities must be a central part of the solution to maternal and child health under a broadened health agenda.
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