Improving women’s and children’s health globally

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is hosting the conference “A World in Transition – Charting a New Path in Global Health” on 1 June in Oslo. The aim of the conference is to promote increased international efforts to improve women’s and children’s rights and health.

The conference marks the start of closer cooperation between the US and Norway in the area of women’s and children’s health. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will give the keynote address at the conference. Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre will give a speech, and there will be a panel discussion with Tamar Manuelyan Atinc, Vice President for Human Development at the World Bank, Haja Zainab Bangura, Minister of Health and Sanitation, Sierra Leone, and Professor K. Srinath Reddy, President of the Public Health Foundation of India.

The conference builds on Norway’s active engagement to promote women’s and children’s rights and health, including its efforts to accelerate progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. The US and Norway will now spearhead an effort to reduce the number of women dying in childbirth and to increase the survival rate of newborns and children under the age of five, and ensure that they have access to basic health care services and essential medicines. 

You can follow the high-level part of the conference live online, including Secretary of State Clinton and Foreign Minister Støre’s speeches:  http://media01.smartcom.no/Microsite/dss_01.aspx?eventid=6832 (broadcast from around 15:00 – 16:30  (GMT+2), Friday 1 June).

The press conference after the conference, in which Secretary of State Clinton and Foreign Minister Støre will participate, will also be transmitted live online: http://media01.smartcom.no/Microsite/dss_01.aspx?eventid=6833 (broadcast from  16:30 – 16:50 (GMT+2), Friday 1 June).

Saving Mothers, Giving Life (Saving Mothers) was launched with the goal of supporting countries where women are dying at alarming rates during pregnancy and childbirth to aggressively reduce maternal mortality. This effort is coordinated by the U.S. Global Health Initiative (GHI), in partnership with Merck for Mothers, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Every Mother Counts and the Government of Norway.