adminThe meeting was held in Addis Ababa during the 20th Ordinary Session of the AU Summit in January, which reaffirmed commitments to improving maternal health in Africa.
Addressing a meeting of health communication practitioners, health journalists and editors from East and Southern Africa at the opening of a three-day media advocacy workshop on Accelerating Maternal Mortality Reduction in Africa in Kampala, Uganda, yesterday, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) technical adviser Dr Asha Mohamud said all had a role to ensure that maternal health issues become a priority, in line with CARMMA.
“CARMMA calls for a mixed bag of strategies from policy dialogues, strategic advocacy and community mobilisation to enlist political commitment to increase resources and boost maternal health outcomes.
“What this means is that now more than ever is the time for everyone, from governments, political leaders, donors, ourselves, the media, the church and communities to play a role to ensure that we have a positive social outcome,” she said.
CARMMA, which was launched in Zimbabwe in 2010, by Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe, who immediately lobbied for the scrapping of maternity services user fees, is expected to address critical women’s health issues such as the high maternal deaths, which have seen 57 percent of all maternal deaths in the world occurring in Africa and one in eight children dying before the age of five.
The meeting, which is being attended by participants from countries that include Swaziland, Malawi, South Africa, Madagascar, Uganda and Zimbabwe, is aimed at improving journalists’ understanding of critical women’s health issues such as family planning, maternal and child health as well as building partnerships between media, governments and the UN agency to promote CARMMA.
At the high-level event on CARMMA during the 20th ordinary session of the AU summit, African leaders, including President Mugabe, committed to re-doubling efforts to improve maternal, newborn and child health to speed up progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, encouraging more states to launch CARMMA, expand access to family planning and other reproductive health services as well as strengthen health systems.
The leaders also committed to invest in human resources for health, building skilled and motivated health workforces, including midwives and strengthening emergency referrals for complicated deliveries.
During the meeting, Zimbabwe is expected to share its experience of coverage of women’s health issues in the media as well as its community mobilisation approaches on women’s health as a way of information and experience sharing by the countries.
Online Reporter