WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-07-30 Time: 14:00:04 Posted By: News Poster
By Tichaona Zindoga
Harare – The 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa from June 11 to July 11 might have been good enough to bemuse the world and push the African Union summit from its traditional June – July, slot but it definitely was not able to shelve some of the major problems affecting the continent.
Just as the World Cup was being played in one of the luckier parts of the continent, statistics will show that about 29 000 children under the age of five were dying each day in the developing world.
The majority of the deaths were for sub-Saharan Africa, a rate of 21 deaths per minute. In turn, a simple mathematical calculation could point to 870 000 possible deaths for the duration of the feverish extravaganza, all from preventable causes.
It is said that more than 70 percent of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neo-natal infection, pneumonia, pre-term delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth.
HIV and Aids, tetanus and measles are also among the killers, which are aided by malnutrition, lack of safe water and sanitation, marginalisation and conflict. On the other hand, there are much more disturbing statistics when it comes to women’s reproductive health.
Unicef notes that with one woman dying from complications in childbirth every minute – about 529 000 each year – a woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a one in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or child-birth, compared to a one in 4 000 risk in a developed country. This is said to be the largest difference between poor and rich countries of any health indicator.
Some authorities also fear that there will be as many as 2,5 million maternal deaths, a similar number of child deaths and as many as 49 million maternal disabilities in Africa over the next 10 years.
Such was the grim face that confronted African leaders when they met in Kampala, Uganda, recently for the 15th Summit of the African Union whose theme was “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa”.
Maternal and child healthcare are two of the eight Millennium Development Goals that the global community has agreed to implement by 2015 through the United Nations, to encourage international development and improve access to health for women and children.
In September 2001, world leaders collectively endorsed MDGs 4 and 5: To reduce child mortality rate by two-thirds and maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015.
The continent clearly has not done the optimal to achieve the targets.
On the eve of the Uganda summit, a top UN official regretted that despite all efforts made in Africa by the UN and its affiliated bodies including Unicef and the UN Population Fund, progress in reaching the Millennium Development Goal of drastically reducing maternal mortality rates “has been abysmally slow”.
Thus in Kampala, African governments pledged to “renew” and “intensify” efforts to scale up interventions and get MDG-achieving programmes back on track.
AU chair and Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika said the summit had agreed to place the welfare of women and safe motherhood at the forefront of their development agendas this year.
“If we improve the welfare of women, access to food and health care, maternal mortality will significantly reduce,” he said. While such sentiments are noble and onerous there is need see that this commitment is followed through by action.
Maternal and child health issues are as important as others such as food security, peace and security and climate change.
President wa Mutharika was the first one to admit that leaders had not been good enough in implementing various undertakings.
In his closing remarks, President wa Mutharika said the decisions made had far-reaching implications, and he urged leaders to ensure that they are implemented.
“We have made decisions before, but implementation has been a problem. It is time for our people to see the results. We have the means and political will, let us do it. I believe the future of the world depends on us,” Uganda’s New Vision quoted him as saying.
This only confirmed what commentators have long feared.
A Ugandan commentator regretted that although the Kampala meeting could come up with lofty resolutions it was unfortunate that “women’s lives in many of the African countries, may remain in danger or even get worse”.
“Just for the record, about half of the African countries have signed and ratified the Maputo Protocol and the last time I followed this debate, only two countries had tried to domesticate it,” she noted.
“This, as we know, is a very comprehensive instrument aimed at empowering and bettering the lives of women across Africa. Today, we would be discussing the challenges and how to consolidate the achievements rather than talking about the failure by African governments to ratify or domesticate it.”
The Maputo Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, which came into force in 2005, outlined the need for maternal mortality reduction.
AU member states committed themselves to repositioning family planning as an essential part of making progress on improving maternal health, to addressing sexual and reproductive health needs of young people, to reducing the incidence of unsafe abortions (including provision of safe abortion services to the fullest extent of the law), and to delivering quality and affordable services to promote safe motherhood.
The Maputo Protocol also enshrined the African Union Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) for a similar cause.
The UN also urged African governments to translate rhetoric into action.
Said a UN top official: “Africa’s leaders must also do their part by pledging the resources we need to honour past promises and open the way to a better future.
“We have a blueprint in the Maputo Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, which has clear objectives and detailed cost estimates for how to reach them. And as African leaders commit to doing their part, so should their development partners.”
The UN counsels that governments should expand national health plans that prioritise women and children’s health.
This requires increasing the proportion of budgetary resources for this purpose.
It says countries must commit to a full continuum of care, so that women are not just seen when an emergency strikes, and so that clinics and caregivers address all of their reproductive health needs, whether pregnancy-related or not.
Remote and poverty-stricken areas must also be reached.
Other experts say governments on the continent have concentrated healthcare provision in urban areas that unfortunately house a smaller population of the continent.
Noble plans and ideas that have been developed should now be implemented.
For instance in Zimbabwe, there have been various blueprints for maternal, neo-natal and child health programmes which include the Reproductive Health Policy, the Maternal Neonatal Health Assessment, the Maternal Neonatal Health Roadmap (2007) and the Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Strategy (2010-2015) which is ready for implementation.
Zimbabwe has also launched CARMMA, calling for more intensive and integrated efforts towards reduction of maternal mortality.
The blueprints come against a backdrop of a 2007 study that revealed that Zimbabwe’s maternal mortality ratio stood at 725 deaths per 100 000 live births compared to the MDG target of 70 deaths per 100 000 live births.
The plans acknowledge the difficulties the country faces in mum and newborn health.
It is thus imperative to address the setbacks in the implementation of the key plans.
The issue of user fees, poor transport and communication systems, poor working conditions of health workers, availability of drugs, among other factors are militating against improved mum and newborn health.
It is envisaged that strengthening family planning programmes, sexual reproductive health services for young people, integration of HIV and neonatal health care services and involvement of males in the broader scheme of maternal health care.
On the main, Government initiative is seen as key and it is incumbent upon African governments to forge policies, initiatives and partnerships that would see the arrest of maternal and newborn fatalities.
Some of these include public-private partnerships, financing and scaling up of resources allocated to health.
Governments should also be accountable for their commitments.
“Most importantly of all,” political will, observed an independent child organisation Save the Children, is the silver bullet to end maternal and child deaths.
“The solutions to ending these preventable deaths annually are well known. If the leaders exercise the will to take concrete actions as they’ve said here, there’s no reason Africa cannot save the lives of millions of its mothers, newborns and children,” said Chikezie Anyanwu, Save the Children’s Africa Advocacy Advisor.
But to be fair to African leaders, some observers have noted, it may take more than just willpower to tackle all the niggling issues.
Since the days of the old Organisation of African Unity resource constraints, manpower and other local factors have been drawing the work of the continent down.
Original Source: 
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Original date published: 29 July 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201007290449.html?viewall=1