child health

Landmark Summit Puts Women at Heart of Global Health Agenda

Global leaders unite to provide 120 million women in the world’s poorest countries with access to contraceptives by 2020. Voluntary family planning services will reach an additional 120 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries by 2020 thanks to a new set of commitments announced today by more than 150 leaders from donor and developing countries, international agencies, civil society, foundations and the private sector.

Merck Announces Collaboration to Improve Maternal Health through Expanded Access to Family Planning

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that they will work together to expand access to family planning, a critical step in improving the health of women around the world. Merck intends to pledge up to $25 million over eight years as part of Merck for Mothers – the company’s 10-year initiative to reduce maternal mortality around the world. This pledge will be matched by the Gates Foundation as part of its commitment to family planning. These contributions will advance efforts to help reach United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for a 75 percent reduction in maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

New Partnership Brings Key Leaders in Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Together to Improve Quality of Care in Low-Income Countries

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2012 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today announced the establishment of a unique and historic global development alliance (GDA) -- Survive and Thrive: Professional Associations, Private Sector and Global Health Scholars Saving Mothers, Newborns and Children -- to improve survival rates for women and children around the world. The new alliance will mobilize U.S. obstetric, pediatric and midwifery professional associations alongside the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), private sector and civil society organizations in a first-of-its-kind partnership to improve the quality of facility-based maternal, newborn and child health services to reduce preventable maternal and child deaths.