Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation officially launched Saving Lives at Birth today during an event at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington DC. Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development is a new program which will seek innovative ways to prevent and treat pregnant women in and their newborns in rural, low-resource settings.
The Saving Lives at Birth program will combine resources from the US Agency for International Development or USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and the World Bank. Together, the combined grant funds for the Saving Lives at Birth program should total around $14 million. Over the course of the next five years, the sponsors expect to invest about $50 million in groundbreaking and sustainable projects which are expected to transform the lives of pregnant women and their babies in the most underserved portions of the world.
Today’s Saving Lives at Birth launch event included speeches from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Norway on global health Dr. Tore Godal, Melinda Gates, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada Peter Singer and World Bank VP for Human Development Tamar Manuelyn Atinc. The speeches addressed the need for critical innovations that are unconventional and will be able to save the lives of millions of women and newborns throughout the world.
To view photos from today’s event, please click on the slideshow to the left of this article.
To learn more about Saving Lives at Birth, please visit savinglivesatbrth.net
Comments