Put Some PEPFAR Energy Behind Maternal Health

This was originally posted on The Huffington Post:

Like so many of you, I sat up watching the State of the Union address last night. We all had our scorecards - the things we wanted to hear about laced in among the things we were pleasantly surprised to hear about. Personally, I think the strong language on climate issues, the commitment to equal pay for women and the emotional plea on gun control were all highlights. The overriding thought I had as I watched last night was a memory of 10 years ago. In 2003, I wasn't watching my twitter screen.  Instead, I was in the office, sitting around a pizza box with Mark Dybul and my other colleagues at what then was called DATA (and now has become the ONE Campaign). 

That was the night President Bush announced the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). When the announcement landed in that speech it shocked the pants off most people including those of us "in the know" in the development world and ushered in a whole new perspective on global health and what could be accomplished. In the years before PEPFAR, AIDS was seen as one of those intractable, scary plagues we just had to watch as it devastated many parts of the world. But that night, we set out on a path to overcome that fear and take action. I remember the entrepreneurial spirit of the speech: "We'll deliver the drugs by motorcycle if we have to." Ten years later, we're talking about an AIDS-free generation—something we couldn't have even dreamed of back then. 

My friend, Mark who shared that office and pizza with me that night remembers that, “Even though I knew he was going to say something and even knew what it was he was going to announce I was still stunned to hear him say the words. I remember having mixed feelings of absolute joy mixed with an undercurrent of "holy sh--, now we actually have to do this!"

There’s still a ton of work to do to accomplish the goals set out in that now-historic SOTU speech. The speech alone didn't get the job done but it sparked an emergency response that has since saved millions of lives. I was lucky enough to get to work on that response—to get caught up in that momentum and feeling of "we'll all do whatever it takes." I was lucky to witness one of the most incredible displays of bipartisan partnership I've ever seen. Things are different today. Budgets are tighter, our global challenges taking shape in ways we couldn’t even imagine then. But I like to remember that night 10 years ago because in the blink of an eye, the seemingly impossible became a mandate and global health took center stage.  All of a sudden, America got it that global health is critical to all of us.

Last night’s speech had that spark and I found myself wishing the country, our government and the global community would find that same spirit again, but this time dedicated to maternal health. Not just because of the hundreds of thousands of women who lose their lives each year to preventable pregnancy and childbirth-related conditions, but because of all the children they leave behind and because of the those women who are left debilitated with childbirth injuries who can no longer contribute to their families economic well-being.  We need that spark, that spirit once again because the kids in these families are less likely to be educated, to stay healthy and to break the vicious cycles of poverty their own mothers were locked into.

Instead of allowing maternal mortality to be another intractable issue, we need to step up and put the same emergency response energy into. Every Mother Counts is excited to be a founding partner of a new effort called Saving Mothers, Giving Life, which is doing just that. It's going into PEPFAR countries, building on that incredible infrastructure that has so effectively reached AIDS patients, and aiming to reduce maternal deaths by up to 50%. That's the kind of audacious goal setting that we need, but we need the same bipartisan energy and determination to turn an ambitious concept into reality.

Millions of us have that spark.  We have the inspiration and motivation.  We have the power.  What we need is the politics.  Join me at Every Mother Counts to light a fire in our government officials to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother in the world.  Start by signing our petition asking our female Senators and Congresswomen to make women’s health a priority.