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Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

At the Muskoka 2010 G-8 Summit, Canada and its G-8 partners launched the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH).

Every year, it is estimated that 500,000 women die in childbirth and pregnancy in the developing world and 9 million children die before their fifth birthday. Many of these deaths could be prevented by ensuring access to public health care and services.
The Muskoka Initiative will help developing countries reduce mortality rates through strengthened health systems and enable the delivery of key interventions along the continuum of care from pre-pregnancy to childhood.

Priorities for action include antenatal care; attended childbirth; post-partum care; sexual and reproductive health care and services, including voluntary family planning; health education; treatment and prevention of diseases including infectious diseases; prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); immunizations; basic nutrition; and relevant actions in the field of safe drinking water and sanitation. The Muskoka Initiative will also support improved health information and innovative means of delivering health care and services.

To support these priorities, the G-8 leaders committed US$5 billion by 2015 in new and additional funding. G-8 leaders indicated their expectation that by 2015, G-8 members will have mobilized significantly greater than US$10 billion for MNCH beyond existing levels of spending. New commitments will be tracked and publicly reported through an accountability report.

The G-8 was also proud to welcome the governments of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Nations Foundation as partners to the Muskoka Initiative. These key partners confirmed financial commitments of $2.3 billion, bringing the total committed at Muskoka to US$7.3 billion.

The Muskoka Initiative responds to Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6 and is a significant contribution to the UN Secretary-General’s efforts to launch a joint plan of action to support the health of women and children at the September 2010 High-level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals.

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