Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Wednesday that will spend about $3 billion dollars over five years on nine projects pertaining to women’s health in developing countries.
According to CBC News, Harper, during his announcement at a United Nations (UN) panel on women’s and children’s health, stated, “These [projects] cover a range of issues in this particular area that will improve the health of mothers and children and will strengthen immunization efforts in developing countries.”
The initial $203 million announced today is part of Canada’s $1.1 billion commitment to the Muskoka Initiative to improve the health of women, children and newborns in developing countries. Canada will also continue to spend an additional $1.75 billion on these health programs between 2010 and 2015.
Harper said these initiatives were vital, as while maternal mortality rates are falling, they are not declining fast enough, The Globe and Mail writes. He added that “[d]egrees of failure are not measured in dollars, they are measured in thousands of lives.”
Photo courtesy of World Economic Forum, Wikimedia Commons.