Foreign dev't leaders gather for Women conference

National, foreign dev't leaders gather for first Women Deliver Philippines
conference

On September 15 to 17, government leaders, legislators, maternal and newborn
health experts, health practitioners, development workers, young leaders and
civil society representatives from the Philippines and abroad will be
meeting for the first ever Women Deliver Philippines conference on maternal
and newborn health.

United Nations Resident Coordinator Jacqueline Badcock, United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) regional director for Asia Pacific Nobuko Horibe,
Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the Delegation of the European Union to the
Philippines, and other UN and foreign dignitaries will join Health Secretary

Enrique Ona, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and other government and
development leaders at the conference to promote investment in women and
share solutions that can empower women and bring down maternal and newborn
deaths.

To be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, the
conference aims to unite diverse sectors with high-level representation 96
from education, health, development, women, youth, business and religious
groups 96 to generate political commitment and financial investment to act on the issues of women's and newborns 92 survival. The conference is organized

by
the Department of Health, the United Nations and Likhaan Center for Women=
=92s
Health, with support from the Australian Agency for International
Development (AusAID) and the European Union.

Local and international resource persons for the three-day conference will
discuss critical issues around maternal and newborn health such as
legislative efforts to expedite achievement of Millennium Development Goal
5, or the improvement of maternal health, global and regional consensus on
effective strategies to reduce maternal and newborn deaths, maternal
survival and human rights, strengthening health systems, investing
financial, material and human resources, and interfaith initiatives on safe
motherhood.

The Women Deliver initiative started in London in 2007 to mark the 20th yea=
r
of the Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI) that was launched in Kenya in 1987.
SMI sought to address the tragedy of half a million women dying during
pregnancy and childbirth and called on the global community to reduce this
figure by half by 2000.

Effective remedies are known, including planning pregnancies, ensuring
trained provider=92s attendance during pregnancy and delivery, and access to
emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care in functional health systems. The
critical task is to invest in these; now.For more information on the Women Deliver Philippines conference, contact
Likhaan Center for Women=92s Health at tel. no. 926-6230 or E-mail
office@likhaan.org.

* * *

For media queries, please contact:
Women Deliver media committee
Arlene Calaguian Alano, 901.0306, (0917) 515.3559, alano@unfpa.org
Chi Laigo Vallido, 426.5484, (0918) 944.3850, chi.vallido@gmail.com