By HealthBridge Executive Director Sian FitzGerald

The Canadian Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Network spoke, and DFATD listened. On November 5, Christian Paradis, minister of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, announced $370 million to save the lives of mothers and children around the world through Canadian partnerships. This follows on the Prime Minister’s announcement in May 2014 to commit an additional $3.5 billion to “Saving Every Woman, Every Child” for the period 2015-2020.

“The Harper government is committed to ending the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children under the age of five within a generation,” said Minister Paradis. “The call for proposals for Partnerships for Strengthening Maternal, Newborn and Child Health is an opportunity to leverage Canadians’ expertise and innovation in improving the health of mothers and children in the Global South and ultimately deliver on this commitment. We look forward to working with our Canadian partners to further our country’s leadership on MNCH.”

So for all of those NGOs that were starting to feel left out of Canadian development assistance, we are back in! And not only that: some of the challenges that we faced in the first round of funding, from 2010 to 2015, appear to have been recognized, and rectified. For example in the first round, the government required all NGOs to raise 25% of the funds from Canadian sources – this took us into fundraising territory that was new to many of us, and took us away from the important business of saving lives; Canadian Partners received no funding to engage with Canadians, while we were expected to have reach throughout the nation; the timeframe was short (only three years for implementation by the time projects were approved and contracts signed): too short to address the complex issues of maternal and child health care in the Global South, and we lacked capacity to properly measure results, despite the government’s commitment to accountability.

The Canadian network asked its members what they would like to see in a second round. They said:

• A longer term commitment – and we got 5 more years. Building on the previous 5 years, this gives 10 years to really make a difference to a problem that cannot be solved overnight.
• A lower fundraising commitment – the new fund requires NGOs to provide 15% of the budget rather than 25%, and 10% of that can be in-kind – thank you! This means we can spend our time doing programming instead of fundraising.
• More resources to measure results – the new call not only provides the resources, but it requires that key common indicators be measured for accountability.
• Resources to engage Canadians – we got that too.

Thank you for listening DFATD! With this renewed program, Canadian leadership will be reinforced throughout the world, and many more lives will be saved. Now, while it is admirable that there are new funds to address specific issues that will help the lives of vulnerable women and children directly, there are broader issues that the Canadian government also needs to recognize – sustainable food systems, clean water – that will affect the health of future generations of vulnerable women and children if not dealt with today.