Parliamentarians from nearly 120 national parliaments have resolved dedicate and prioritize action and resources for improving women and children health.

The resolution titled ‘Access to Health as a Basic Right: the Role of Parliaments in Addressing Key Challenges to Securing the Health of Women and Children was reached on Wednesday at the Inter-Parliamentary Union ( IPU) meeting in Kampala, Uganda. The meeting called all member-parliaments to take all possible measures to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 by 2015.

MDG 4 aims to reduce child deaths around the world by two thirds by 2015, while MDG 5 aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters by the same year. This is the first time that the world’s parliaments, acting through the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), have passed a resolution on this issue. The debate on the resolution featured interventions from more than 50 member-delegations.

Delegates called upon parliamentarians to scrutinize all government health interventions to ensure they are evidence-based, conform to international human rights standards, and are responsive to regular and transparent performance reviews. Maternal and child mortality rates remain unacceptably high, and many countries, especially in Africa, are not on track to achieve MDGs 4 and 5. About 7.6 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 2010, with 41 per cent dying in their first month. In 2008, 358,000 women died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Many women and children around the world do not have access to the professional care, medicines and supplies that can save their lives and those of their children. Many pregnant women are not being attended to by skilled health professionals during labour and delivery, a major contributing factor to maternal and newborn deaths. In Sub Saharan Africa, 50% of women deliver their babies without professional care. Parliamentarians play critical role in allocating resources, enacting laws, implementation and reflecting the views of citizens about their access to health services.

As the host of next IPU meeting in Quebec City, in October, Canadian Parliament was tasked to follow up the push for implementation of the resolution. Senator Salma Ataullahjan noted that “Canada has significantly supported women’s and children’s health through our Muskoka Initiative, our support to the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health and our Prime Minister’s co-chairmanship of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health

Speaking during the Assembly, Ms. Paula Turyahikayo, one of the three IPU Rapporteurs responsible for developing the resolution said adoption of the resolution on MDGs 4 and 5 in Kampala is a major achievement. “We hope that now all the stakeholders will come in and strengthen efforts by parliaments that make it possible to implement the resolution in all countries where MDGs 4 and 5 are doing badly." She also noted that “strengthened partnership between parliamentarians, civil society organizations, media, the private sector and all other relevant actors will be key to implementation of this resolution, ‘she said.

IPU Director of Programmes Martin Chungong welcomed the resolution, which he said will go a long way in structuring the engagement of parliamentarians in national efforts to improve the health of women and children. The forum was also addressed by UNFPA Executive Director Professor Babatunde Osetimehin, UNICEF Director Anthony Lake and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), the Countdown to 2015 effort and UN agencies have been important technical partners of the IPU in the lead-up to this resolution, beginning from 2008, when they first co-hosted a session on maternal, newborn and child health during the IPU’s spring assembly in South Africa. Since then, PMNCH has worked closely with the IPU and host parliaments in organizing panel discussions, site visits, research reports, and knowledge summaries to increase knowledge and awareness among parliamentarians, focusing on their important roles in allocation, oversight, representation and accountability for women’s and children’s health.

Over 1,500 members of parliament and parliamentary staff drawn from 119 countries worldwide attended the IPU Assembly in Kampala. The IPU, created in 1889, is the world’s leading forum for parliamentary dialogue on common issues of concern, and holds a general assembly for members each spring and fall. This spring’s agenda for Kampala also included an IPU initiative to reduce violence in Syria and improve access to humanitarian aid, as well as the launch of the first Global Parliamentary Report, co-produced with UNDP, investigating the state of relations between parliaments and citizens.