'Civil society's role important in preventing child, maternal

The government today said that civil society has an important role to play in ending preventable child and maternal deaths by holding dispensations accountable to their promises.
"The civil society has had an important role to play in strengthening service delivery, creating innovative models, enhancing community mobilization and demand and holding governments accountable to their promises.
"This role will continue to be crucial in the years ahead, as we work towards ending preventable child and maternal deaths by 2030," said C K Mishra, Additional Secretary of Union Health Ministry.
Mishra was speaking at an international civil society consultation on preventable child and maternal deaths organized by Save the Children on the eve of the Global Call to Action Summit 2015.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Global Call to Action Summit 2015 tomorrow. The two-day leadership summit will be a confluence of health ministers from the 24 priority countries that committed to the global Call to Action for child survival in June 2012, state health ministers from India, international academic experts amongst a host of others.
This Summit will be co-hosted with the Health Ministry of Ethiopia and in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Tata Trusts, UNICEF, USAID, UK Aid and WHO.

Civil society partners presented examples of interventions to end preventable child and maternal deaths that have helped tackle ongoing challenges such as accessibility to health, socio-cultural norms, inconsistent service delivery and lack of coordination.

"India has the most sophisticated civil society community anywhere in the world. As we move forward, we must reorganise ourselves and work in collaboration towards ending preventable maternal and child deaths," said Geeta Rao Gupta, Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF.
Civil society organisations will also deliberate with policy makers of 24 countries at the Summit tomorrow on issues including continued commitment of resources and international development aid to reduce child and maternal deaths by 2030, keeping issues of adolescent girls on the centre-stage, universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services and others.