Andrew Mitchell – 2023 Speech on Ending Preventable Deaths

The speech made by Andrew Mitchell, the UK Ministerial Champion for Ending Preventable Deaths of Mothers, Babies and Children, in Washington DC, USA, on 21 March 2023.

Thank you to all partners here for energising the global fight against child and maternal deaths.

Despite global goals and widespread efforts, a pregnant woman, newborn baby or child dies every 6 seconds.

The UK government – and I as the UK’s Ending Preventable Deaths Ministerial Champion – remain committed to working with everyone who shares our wish to end preventable deaths. Progress has been blown off course by the pandemic and Putin’s war. But solutions are all around us. We must sharpen our focus on three things:

First, equity.

We know these preventable deaths disproportionately affect poor and marginalised groups, and are fuelled by conflict and instability.

We must listen to and champion the needs of marginalised communities. We must support them to hold their leaders to account, so that regardless of where people live, they can access and afford the health services they need.

Our second focus must be quality.

Approximately 5 million deaths each year are as a result of poor quality healthcare.

We must push for high quality services, including services that are kind and respect the rights of women, girls and other marginalised groups. We must give communities a voice in decisions about their health services, and support trained, paid and motivated health workers, who have access to the equipment and drugs they need.

Our third focus must be integration.

To save a mother and a baby requires almost every part of the health system to be working well.

So we must strengthen the ‘backbone’ of the health systems, including community and primary care, supply chains, midwifery, health financing and vaccines. We have to focus on every contributor to child and maternal health – everything from good nutrition to hygiene and sanitation. From clean water and air, to supporting people, especially women and girls, to make healthy choices.

I am happy to announce that we will launch a new UK EPD programme to provide technical and strategic support to a set of flagship countries who want to partner with us and where the need for UK support is greatest.

The central component to all these efforts is partnership… governments, donors, health professionals and people working together for better services and better outcomes.

We know that we can achieve more together than we can alone. So let’s continue to bring people together, focus on solutions and innovation, and halt the preventable deaths of more mothers, babies and children.

Thank you.