Advocacy International advises a consortium led by OPTIONS UK on an advocacy campaign – MamaYe! – to increase maternal and newborn survival in Ghana. The MamaYe coalition in Ghana is led by Prof Adanu of the School of Public Health, and Vicky Okine of the Alliance of Reproductive Health Rights. Recently the MamaYe coalition appealed to Ghanaian MPs for an increase in spending on maternal and newborn health.
What chances are there of success for this campaign?
First, it is important to note that Ghana has halved levels of poverty since 1992. In that year, nearly 52% of Ghanaians lived in poverty. By 2006 Ghanians living in poverty had been halved to 28%, according to the World Bank.
Reframing the issue away from failure, despair and mortality – and towards solutions, success and survival.
As part of our work advising a UKAid- funded consortium whose aim is to reduce maternal and newborn mortality in five African countries, Ai had to think of ways of engaging Africa’s men and women in the complex issue of maternal and newborn health. This is an issue that requires a spectrum of care – from the time that young girls reach reproductive age right through to maturity; and from conception to well after a child is born.
Our director, Ann Pettifor and project manager, Georgia Lee have just returned from extended visits to Sierra Leone and Ethiopia, as part of a DFID-funded project to reduce maternal and newborn mortality. Ai is part of a consortium that includes the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, IMMPACT in Aberdeen and the White Ribbon Alliance.
The BBC Radio 4′s ‘World Tonight’ yesterday devoted the whole of their news programme to the question of global food security, and invited Ann Pettifor to comment throughout. She focussed on Goldman Sachs’s Global Commodity Index – (about which you can read more here in Foreign Policy) not very different from the ‘Collateralised Debt Obligations’ (CDOs) that had been used during the property bubble to ‘slice and dice’ assets, and make them available for speculative purposes.
The programming was in response to a recent statement by President Sarkozy to the World Farmers Union. He was speaking in his role as convenor of the upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes on 3-4 November, 2011, and called for greater regulation of financial markets: Continue Reading