The US-based humanitarian organisation Save the Children has just published its ninth annual ‘State of the World’s Mothers’ report to coincide with the commemoration of Mothers Day. Quite a contrast to the celebratory gift-giving and card exchange that now define Mothers Day, the report, while it highlights some of the best places in the world today for mothers and children, concentrates on some of the worst in an attempt to look at what can be done to improve those at the bottom of the list. This list is bottom heavy and Save the Children rightly believes that there are areas that can be worked on – such as health care, education and economies – to pull those bottom-rung countries out of the pit.
As they have for years, Nordic countries came out on top. Sweden heads the list, followed by Norway, Iceland and, surprisingly, New Zealand. Denmark, Australia, Finland, Ireland, Germany and France round out the top ten. New Zealand’s listing was a surprise given recent investigations and interventions into the lives and treatment of the Maoris in that country, especially with regard to child abuse.
Among other developed countries, the United Kingdom hit the list at number 14, Canada at 20 and the United States at 27. Meanwhile in the bottom ten among the least developed countries were Ethiopia, Mali, Dijbouti, Eritrea, Guinea-Biseau, Angola, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Chad and Niger in that order. Guyana, which was listed among less developed countries came in at 36 on that list, but at 77 on the general listing. It was behind Suriname at 34/75; Trinidad and Tobago 23/64; Jamaica 62/21 and Barbados 6/47.
According to Save the Children, the survey criteria, which determined list placement, included the lifetime risk of maternal mortality; percentage of women using modern contraception and female life expectancy. It also examined expected number of years of formal schooling for females; estimated female-to-male earned income; participation of women in national government; mortality rate for children under five years old; and percentage of population with access to safe water among others.
According to the report, there are 200 million children in 55 developing countries without basic health care who are at risk of dying, and it added that ten million of these actually do die annually from highly preventable or treatable ailments such as diarrhoea and pneumonia. While the organization recognized that education and the economy needed to improve in many of the countries in the bottom tier, it is pushing mainly for better health care programmes to stop children dying.
The report’s recommendations include strengthening basic health systems in developing countries, which would include a basic package of maternal, newborn and child health care that takes into account the realities of the country in question. It suggests investment in community health care workers in order to make this possible.
Most if not all of the recommendations have already been made by other international organizations and some have been successfully implemented in some places. Guyana, for instance, has done all of the above with regard to revamping its health care system with a great deal of success. That infant and maternal mortality have not dipped as much as they should has to do with the human factor. Beyond putting new systems and equipment in place, building new clinics and hospitals and ensuring that the necessary skills are available, more emphasis needs to be placed on the people problem. Disgruntled health care workers can make for a poor system. Meeting at least some of their needs can go a far way towards improving service provision and ultimately saving lives.
