IAS Vienna 2010

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I would also like to thank Mrs. Karen Vance Wallace, Executive Director of the Teresa Group, for her kind introduction. I wish to further thank the organizers, the Teresa Group and the Coalition on Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA), for the invitation to make the closing remarks at this Symposium. In turn, I wish to congratulate you, the organizers, on this excellent two-day symposium, and participants, colleagues and friends, who have enriched it with your knowledge and expertise: drawing attention to and discussing models of family-centred services for children affected by HIV and AIDS from clinical, community, legal and policy perspectives.

Indeed, there are many advancements around children affected by HIV that we should be celebrating in the context of the International AIDS Conference and more broadly as we conclude this symposium. We are truly moving beyond the rhetoric of the importance of greater focus on children, to concrete action toward holistically addressing the needs of children affected by HIV, with a longer term, visionary perspective.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank the president of Women Deliver, Jill Sheffield, for inviting me to speak at this session today, on poverty as an obstacle to improving maternal health.
Issues relating to women and girls are of especial importance to me, and I believe the conference message is fitting: women truly are the “economic heart of the developing world. And to do all this work, they need to be healthy.” This session goes to the heart of this message, given the intrinsic link between poverty, ill health and a nation’s economic prosperity. I would further add that beyond good health, the empowerment of women is central to the economic prosperity of a nation. This is further stressed through the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which is the basis for achieving reproductive health, as well as population and development objectives within a framework of human rights and gender equality. Goals include universal access to reproductive health care, universal education and the empowerment of women and gender equality: these are pre-conditions in reaching a country’s development objectives, in reducing poverty and improving the health and social status of women. These objectives, as you are aware, have been incorporated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
I am pleased to be speaking specifically to MDG 5, improving maternal health, with its dual focus on reducing maternal mortality and ensuring universal access to reproductive health services, given its link with the other health MDGs. Namely, MDG 4 and 6: which among other issues, target reducing by two-thirds the mortality rate of children younger than five years; and halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS by 2015 and other diseases respectively. However, it’s clear that the other MDGs, that of eradicating extreme poverty & hunger (MDG1); and achieving universal primary education (MDG 2); and the empowerment of women through the promotion of gender equity (MDG 3), are intimately linked with the attainment of MDGs, 4, 5 & 6.