Tagged: Health and Education
Rich country donors and the World Bank are wasting money and risking lives by continuing to push unproven and discredited private healthcare programs in poor countries. Oxfam’s warning comes in a new report ‘Blind Optimism: Challenging the myths about private health care in poor countries’.
Good healthcare is a fundamental right, not a luxury. But in poor countries, the growth of private sector provision means healthcare is often either too expensive, or such low quality it risks lives.
Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Investment in maternal health and improvements in the efficiency of spending could help save lives.
Governments and the pharmaceutical industry are still failing to develop new medicines and vaccines to address diseases of the developing world, said Oxfam International in a new report today.
In Afghanistan, a woman dies every 27 minutes thanks to pregnancy-related complications.
When the UN meets this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals maternal mortality will be high on the agenda. The target to cut the rate by three quarters by 2015 is the most severely off-track of all the MDGs.
Ahead of a crucial meeting in New York next week to assess the state of the world’s fight against global poverty, international agency Oxfam called on world leaders to redouble their efforts to fight the impact of rising food and fuel prices.

