I’m posting this e-mail I received as a member of the White Ribbon Alliance India. Please take a moment to sign here.
Our Promise to Mothers Lost: Healthy Pregnancy and Safe Childbirth for All
Challenging Heads of State to Make Real Their Pledge to Save Women’s Lives
A Plan of Action Culminating During the UN Summit
Dear WRA India members and partners,
The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood is executing a letter-writing campaign to more than 50 heads of state – many who will be participating in the meetings at the United Nations in September 08 – to urge them to take bold steps to strengthen health systems within their countries and globally to ensure every woman’s right to live through childbirth.
Background: The good news is that in the year since Ban Ki-Moon and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a Call to Action in recognition that “urgent and concerted action” was needed to get the MDGs on track to be met by 2015, 48 countries have signed the Declaration on the MDGs to make public their pledge to join in a global effort to deal with this “development emergency.” Even more encouraging are the recent declarations by the European Union, the African Union, and G8 which included measurable, time-specific commitments to increase investments in health systems and health workers that could directly impact communities where pregnant women die for lack of care.
The less encouraging news is that whereas world leaders can no longer deny the decades-long record of maternal deaths as the only MDG virtually at a standstill, they fail to identify specific funding targets and have made no new commitments to invest in maternal health.
Our Plan of Action: The White Ribbon Alliance is organizing a letter-writing campaign to the Presidents and Prime Ministers of countries where we have the capacity on the ground to make visible a multi-sectoral coalition united in demanding the changes necessary to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. In the countries where we are already directly engaging government officials, the letters reinforce our ongoing advocacy and could be used to push for commitments that may already be under consideration. In the countries where the government is yet to prioritize maternal health, the head of state is officially put on notice that the White Ribbon Alliance is holding them to account to lead a definite plan of action. Everywhere the letters increase the awareness of Presidents and Prime Ministers that they must answer to a growing global movement, whether during the UN meetings or in the many other venues where decisions will get made about investments in maternal health.
I am writing this email to you to please, please sign this letter as soon as possible. To sign you have to log on to
And click on the “sign the letter” button.
Please pass it on to everyone in your e-mail address book. Please ask every pregnant woman you meet to sign this letter.
I appreciate that your time is valuable and your work with the White Ribbon Alliance often requires personal sacrifice. I hope you agree that the letter-writing campaign is a good move to ramp up our advocacy to stop needless maternal and new born deaths.
Regards,
Aparajita
Dr Aparajita Gogoi
National Coordinator, WRA India
