On September 15 to 17, government leaders, legislators, maternal and newborn health experts, health practitioners, development workers, young leaders and civil society representatives from the Philippines and abroad will be meeting for the first ever Women Deliver Philippines conference on maternal and newborn health.

United Nations Resident Coordinator Jacqueline Badcock, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) regional director for Asia Pacific Nobuko Horibe, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines, and other UN and foreign dignitaries will join Health Secretary Enrique Ona, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and other government and development leaders at the conference to promote investment in women and share solutions that can empower women and bring down maternal and newborn deaths.

To be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, the conference aims to unite diverse sectors with high-level representation – from education, health, development, women, youth, business and religious groups – to generate political commitment and financial investment to act on the issues of women's and newborns’ survival. The conference is organized by the Department of Health, the United Nations and Likhaan Center for Women’s Health, with support from the European Union.

Local and international resource persons for the three-day conference will discuss critical issues around maternal and newborn health such as legislative efforts to expedite achievement of Millennium Development Goal 5, or the improvement of maternal health, global and regional consensus on effective strategies to reduce maternal and newborn deaths, maternal survival and human rights, strengthening health systems, investing financial, material and human resources, and interfaith initiatives on safe motherhood.

The Women Deliver initiative started in London in 2007 to mark the 20th year of the Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI) that was launched in Kenya in 1987. SMI sought to address the tragedy of half a million women dying during pregnancy and childbirth and called on the global community to reduce this figure by half by 2000.

Effective remedies are known, including planning pregnancies, ensuring trained provider’s attendance during pregnancy and delivery, and access to emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care in functional health systems. The critical task is to invest in these; now.

For more information on the Women Deliver Philippines conference, contact Likhaan Center for Women’s Health at tel. no. 926-6230 or E-mail office@likhaan.org.