As MDG summiters head home this weekend, they would be advised to read this excellent article by Nandini Oomman. This week’s summit on the Millennium Development Goals, which concluded Wednesday, culminated in the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s announcement of a 5-year, $40 billion initiative for maternal and child health. While the initiative is certainly a welcome one, Oomman notes that success in MCH initiatives requires investment in the systems which are required to implement the critical interventions that we know work:
Within the global health policy stratosphere, focus is often on mobilizing resources and making commitments to solve global health challenges in the developing world. While this focus is understandable and commendable, we must also talk about how to connect that money and policy productively to implementation. Unless we recognize the big problems in devising successful strategies to deliver services in a specific developing country context, we will certainly not solve these pressing global health challenges.
The big push (money and policy) on maternal and child health at the global policy level is very welcome. But connecting these global resources to implementation for impact (read: fewer and fewer women and children die due to pregnancy and childbirth related causes) is critical. How will these new initiatives do better than previous ones in reaching the people they are trying to help? Interventions, no matter how effective, will not help people they cannot reach.