Update on G8's commitment to Maternal Mortality and Millennium Development Goals

Late last night I emailed my colleagues working on the Maternal Mortality Campaign to see if any progress was made on Maternal Mortality. This is what he sent me at 2am this morning.
1. Specifically on the maternal Health bit:  "G8 endorsement of a new Global Consensus on maternal and newborn health provides a real opportunity going forward. It provides a powerful framework to accelerate action on maternal mortality, bringing greater political profile, operational coherence, energy and accountability to collective efforts. It commits the international community to align its efforts to secure additional financing, political mobilization and enhanced delivery to one global goal to save 6 million lives of mothers and babies by 2015. Now need to work together to make this a reality . .

2. There will be a separate announcement on agriculture today.

Here is the breakdown note that was sent out with key G8 decisions on MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).

Dear All,

I wanted to send you a quick update on some of the key commitments the G8 made yesterday on the development agenda.

There was some progress in key areas. The three elements we're most please about are:

*A commitment to an international assessment ahead of next year's G8 on what the G8 needs to do in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. This was a last minute addition to the text that came from a discussion between leaders. We hope this provides a real opportunity to set up an ambitious agenda for the G8 next year and a spur to G8 countries to set new aid targets once the Gleneagles targets expire in 2010.

*The G8 agreed a new Global Consensus on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. This framework addresses the lack of international agreement on effective interventions. It includes support for free services for women and children where countries chose to provide it.

*Finally, one of the criticisms of the G8 has been the perceived tendency of the G8 to make promises that it doesn't then deliver on. To start addressing this the G8 yesterday published its first accountability report which shows individual country progress against key G8 commitments. In addition the G8 tasked its experts to produce a full accountability review in 2010. Here's a copy of the report published today http://www.g8italia2009.it/static/G8_Allegato/G8_Preliminary_Accountability_Report_8.7.09,0.pdf We hope this will make a real difference to the way the G8 works moving forwards.

Here are some of the other key commitments on development:

*The G8 reaffirmed its commitment to the Gleneagles targets to increase annual ODA to Africa by US$25 billion a year and overall ODA by an estimated $50 billion by 2010.

*It reaffirmed commitments on global health including US$60 billion for health over five years; 100 million malaria bednets by 2010; work towards universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010 and provide finance for the eradication of polio.

*The G8 reaffirmed the need to fulfil the $1.2bn financing needs of the Fast Track Initiative and welcomed the FIFA 1-GOAL World Cup 2010 Education campaign, which is working to mobilise 30 million football fans to advocate for the resources needed to meet the Education MDGs.

*It agreed to work to reduce the average cost of transferring remittances from 10% to 5% over the next 5 years and to broaden access to remittances and financial services. Formal remittances to developing countries are estimated at around $300billion per year, so reducing the cost could mobilise significant additional resources.

*The G8 agreed to help developing countries to benefit from the new co-operative tax environment, including support for considering a multilateral approach for exchange of information. It asked for recommendations by the time of the G20.

*The G8 urged that the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security should be implemented by the end of 2009. Following the commitments of $10bn for food security at Toyako, $13bn has been disbursed. Further commitments on food are expected through the wider meeting on food security tomorrow.

*The G8 agreed to launch a strengthened Africa-G8 water and sanitation partnership.