Seeking stories.
Thanks to the R. James Travers Fellowship, I spent two months researching and writing about Canadian-funded aid in Tanzania and Haiti. Follow my work here.
Me at One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (Laura Payton)
Tomorrow's the big day - my Travers project starts rolling out on CBCNews.ca. We'll kick off with an interview with the good folks at Ottawa Morning (you can listen online if you aren't in Ottawa) and you will also hear me on your local station later this week after I spend six hours in a radio booth talking to 31 different hosts.
Please let me know what you think. I hope it lives up to expectations.
I've been turned down for interview requests on this project by the following:
UPDATE: That last name is an update to a post from earlier this morning. I am so incredibly disappointed Minister Paradis has turned me down. I sort of assumed the prime minister would turn me down since he rarely takes questions from reporters, nevermind sitting down for interviews. And Bono, well, as much as it would have helped the clicks on my stories, I don't care as much what he has to say about Canada's international assistance as I do about our own political leaders.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development has been incredibly helpful with my project, including setting up a background briefing ahead of my travels, plus interviews with three ambassadors. That openness really got my hopes up that Paradis would sit down with me. I am nearly speechless that the government is putting up nobody to speak to their SIGNATURE FOREIGN POLICY initiative. I thought that the number of years I've spent covering the issue, plus the fact that I actually spent weeks visiting Canadian projects, would speak to my sincerity in wanting to provide a complete picture. Apparently that doesn't matter.
A page waiting to be filled with words - it's every writer's dream to have the time to fill one but every writer's nightmare to be faced with getting started.
I'm back in Ottawa after a tiring, inspiring and fulfilling few weeks away. I spent eight days in Haiti and ended my travels with five days in New York, where I'd been a little afraid nothing would come together and that part of the trip would look like I'd tacked it on just to go shopping or hang out in Manhattan. In the end, I had some great interviews that pulled together what I've been working on.
Now I'm staring at this blank page and avoiding starting. It's not even about waiting for the words to come, because obviously they won't come until I start typing. Every writer knows this but every writer has a highly refined set of procrastination techniques. If I recall my delay tactics dating back to university finals, my apartment will soon be sparkling clean. I will all of a sudden be simply unable to concentrate without washing all the baseboards or bleaching the grout between the tiles in my shower. And when was the last time I scrubbed out the refrigerator, or emptied the entire cat litter box and washed it down?
I'll be sitting at my kitchen table, coffee in hand, placed as far from my TV and HBO on-demand as possible, but those dusty baseboards and yellowed grout will be all I can see. How could anyone focus with such filth around them? Nevermind that I have a cleaning lady who will come on Sunday.
Over the years - in particular when I spent a few months freelancing and worked from home - I also developed some techniques to try to thwart my inner lazy person. I would go to a coffee shop, for example, and not ask for the wifi password. Without internet access, I'd bore myself into working. But for now, I'm only on day one of writing, so I'm not quite ready for such drastic measures. Besides, I should really get on Pinterest to find out the best cleaning solution for bathroom grout.
My Tanzanian fixer, Joachim, in the midst of fixing a problem for me.
When you're going to be working in a country you don't know well, most journalists will hire what we call a fixer. I don't know how the term came about but I assume it's because they make stuff happen.
They are always locals who know the country and speak the language, and usually have some understanding of what's newsy so they can help. They do everything from use their contacts to find out how to reach sources to help you get a local sim card so you can do your job more smoothly.
I've had great luck with the fixers I've had on this trip.
Joachim, in Tanzania, does a lot of work with Farm Radio International and happened to be working with a colleague of mine from CBC News who was in Tanzania at the same time as me. Joachim is a young guy with big plans. I was told Tanzanians always have two or three jobs on the go, and he's an excellent example of that: he fixes electronics, as well as fixing for journalists, and he teaches Swahili. That was an excellent way to pass the time on our four-hour drive to an interview.
Marc, in Haiti, reminds me of one of my uncles - a tall, lean photographer with a hint of a smoker's growl to his voice. He was born in Haiti but spent years in America, so he knows a lot about his country, as well as having a sense of what I want to understand better about it. He also seems to know at least every third person we run into, whether it's at the Canadian embassy or out and about in the area around Port-au-Prince, and he's been a field producer on a number of documentaries and news stories so he's got deep knowledge about weirdly specific stuff.
Both Joachim and Marc have translated interviews for me, found me decent hotels outside of major cities and taken care of whatever snags come up (which has, of course, so far included negotiating with immigration officials.) Both have saved me money by knowing what to ask for and how to ask it. I really wish I could have a fixer for every-day life (I suspect in politics that person is known as a chief of staff).
A few people have asked how you find a fixer. I had no idea until this trip, but the Travers Fellowship website has a good article about it by the Toronto Star's Michelle Shephard (who has far more experience reporting outside Canada than I do, in that I had none until now and she is a superstar). I simply asked other journalists and they connected me with Joachim and Marc. And I'm happy to pay it forward: these guys are great, so get in touch if ever you need someone like them.
A girl listens to community health workers at a monthly community gathering in Terre Neuve, Haiti. (Laura Payton)
I arrived in Haiti on Tuesday after a day and a half stop in Ottawa to unpack, do laundry and repack. It's been another whirlwind but here are some photos to keep this blog fresh while I ponder deep and important thoughts, which of course I'll save for the pieces I write anyway rather than blogging them.
Community health workers discuss vaccination and nutrition with women in Terre Neuve, Haiti. (Laura Payton)
Petion-ville. (Laura Payton)
The hills of Port-au-Prince. (Laura Payton)
A sample of the scenery on the road between Mwanza and Tarime, Tanzania. (Laura Payton)
"Can you find me a Canadian wife?"
The immigration official with possession of my passport seemed intent on making his way from Tanzania to a much colder climate, but presumably one in which he saw himself being more successful than East Africa. He was the second official in half an hour to press me on whether I could get him to Canada. I had made it through two waiting rooms and one office before being ushered into a second office where I handed over $US 200 to get an additional visa for my trip.
I'd already had to battle, through my translator, for several hours of negotiations two days earlier with immigration officers who stopped us at a roadblock in northern Tanzania, on a highway that led toward Nairobi. We hadn't been stopped at all on the way to Tarime, a town near the border with Kenya, but were stopped five times on the four-hour drive back to the Tanzanian business hub of Mwanza. Twice to check my papers and three times to check the driver's.
As it turned out, I didn't have all the paperwork I needed. I'd gotten the $US 500 temporary press pass I apparently needed to operate in the country. A bargain, really, considering if I had been making a television news story it would have cost $US 1,200. And the high commission in Ottawa had issued me an "other business" visa, and had copies of my project synopsis and a letter of invitation from one of the NGOs whose projects I was visiting.
But they had neglected to mention that I also needed to get myself a temporary work visa known as a CTA, and I didn't see any mention of it anywhere I'd searched for entry requirements. It's easy enough to get at an immigration office, but I didn't know I needed it - neither did several of the NGOs who I later asked about it - and was then forced to spend an afternoon dealing with officials who were willing to let me go for a discounted price if I moved along without getting the actual $US 200 stamp that I needed.
I suspect I stupidly drew attention to myself by taking an iPhone video along the highway, trying to capture - ironically for my own use, not for my project - the breathtaking scenery on the way back from Tarime. I have a detachable handle and lens on loan from work, but it makes the iPhone look a lot more like a professional camera. I was later told that region tends to favour the opposition politically, and combined with being on the highway from Kenya, a white chick in a private car drew too much attention.
Despite the initial half-price offer by the officials from the highway, I didn't want to risk being stopped again if indeed I didn't have the paperwork I needed. Back to the negotiating table, and a decision to meet the next morning, a Saturday, at the office so I could pick up the visa. But a third official who they said was needed to issue me a receipt didn't show, so they let me go catch a plane to Zanzibar with a promise to pick up the CTA there.
It was at the office in Zanzibar that I encountered two immigration officials who really, really wanted to go to Canada.
"Can you bring me to Canada?"
No, I'm sorry, my husband wouldn't allow that (I'm not married but it's just easier to tell them that).
"Do you have a sister?"
Yes and she's also married (another lie, but one I think she would support).
I was directed to a third waiting room, where I tried to look neutral. My passport had gone back to the first office with an official, and the $US 200 was in the second office, and I had no idea whether I would lose either. I repeated "soft eyes," a refrain from my yoga class used to relax my face - to avoid further annoying them by looking impatient.
In the end, it took only about 45 minutes to get in and out with my stamp. I wasn't stopped again on my trip to Tanzania, but at least the gauntlet of immigration officers gave me another story to tell.
Trying really hard to maintain my om...
Edited to update: yay for early-rising Tanzanians! The maintenance man arrived at 6:45 a.m. the next morning and freed my gear, and I didn't miss a beat on my daily schedule. I'm never again locking up my notebook. It travels with me.
Of all the things that could affect my gear which I worried about before I left--theft, rain, batteries, just plain breaking--I never contemplated this. My gear, including my notebook, is locked in my hotel room safe, and the safe is broken. I can't get to my laptop, my mic, my cash or my bank cards. The only thing I have on me is my iPhone.
The notebook is the stupidest part. In a fit of Dar es Salaam paranoia, I locked it in, thinking I couldn't bear to lose it if someone decided to really clean out my room. It's usually in my purse but tonight I threw it into the safe. And now I have two hours that I'd set aside for transcribing, and I'm just worrying about whether the repairman will get here before my 730am departure for a site visit. Less than 12 hours from now. Argh.
Yes, all of this fit into one safe. My gear at an earlier stop.
Rehema Shabani with daughter Samia Juma talks about a Canadian government-funded development program in Tanzania's Singida region. (Laura Payton)
Canadian projects funded through the 2010 Muskoka Initiative are wrapping up here in Tanzania, including a World Vision Canada project in Singida region called SUSTAIN.
On my first few days here, I spoke to Rester Boniface, the SUSTAIN project co-ordinator. She said World Vision has submitted a proposal for the 2015 to 2020 round of funding (that call for proposals, under Canada's Partnership Branch, which works directly with the NGOs as opposed to bilaterally or multilaterally, went out in January). But because the team sees as great a need in some of the districts that weren't covered under SUSTAIN, the proposal covers only one of the districts that were included in the first round, and adds two new districts.
At the same time, the district health officials I spoke to say they need at least another year of funding.
I asked Rester about that decision. Here's the transcript of her answer, as well as the audio.
"That's very difficult. Because there are a lot of need, there are a lot of challenges you face. And when we work in an area, we keep on identifying more problems and more problems. And these are there. We wish we were able to address all the problems. And sometimes it reaches a time where we have to leave, like now, where we have not reached where we thought maybe we could reach, or we have not covered all the needs. Clearly it is a challenge. And when we leave, like when we were handing over the project, all the speeches were saying we are sad because we feel we still need you. Those words were making us feel bad because we know the problem. We know they need us. We know the budget they have is not enough. And they still have a lot of things they have to do. So clearly it is very hard and it is very challenging but since these projects are small, small, we have nothing to do. Sometimes we have to leave and when we get an opportunity for writing proposals, we write; when we get funds, yes we support, but we can't address all of the challenges."
The last few days have been, I think, if anything more of a whirlwind than my first week. I've been here 14 days now and have covered hundreds of kilometres and talked to dozens of people in three districts. I have spent at least three hours in the car all but two days, and on some days up to six or seven hours, just to get to the remote areas where you'll find Canadian-funded international development work. By the end of this trip I'll have seen projects in five districts.
That above graf is all to explain why my blogposts are still few and far between - I intended to blog a lot more but simply haven't had either the time or the internet connection at night to do so. For the last few days, however, I should have solid internet access and with any luck a bit of a slower pace as I start to wrap up my time in this country.
I've picked up a bit of Swahili along the way, although I'm far from conversant. I think enough to show merchants that I'm trying, although they're all very keen to help me learn more. My friends and family won't be surprised to hear that one of the first phrases I taught myself (from the guide book) was "chakula ketamu sana" - "That was delicious!" (I really love to eat). I had a translator on the last leg of my trip who helped me learn my numbers so I can buy things more easily. A side benefit was that I could recognize flight numbers at the airport the other day as I headed into the second-last leg of my trip.
On one of my first days, one of the local NGO communications people asked me if I needed additional subjects from a community group. I paused and she said "This is your chance." I'm grateful she said that on my first day because it's been my mantra for the trip.
There are a few stories emerging clearly from my time so far, and I'm taking a few days to finish transcribing what I've gathered so far (UGH I AM ONLY HALF-DONE THAT), and go over my notes. It's hard to believe I have a whole other country to visit to round out the story.
Stats so far:
On Thursday I stared straight into the face of a standard ethical dilemma and was completely taken aback by my indecision.
I interviewed a group of women who overcame substantial obstacles and now work together as seamstresses. The organization that set me up with these women had broached the idea of paying them for their time and reimbursing them for meal and transportation costs. I balked, since journalists don't pay for interviews (or shouldn't, in my opinion), and the organization backed down.
After we did the interviews, the women asked my translator for "chai money." I asked if that was standard, and he said another organization he works for sometimes - when pushed - gives interview subjects about 3,000 Tanzanian shillings if the interviews take over four hours. That's about $2. We spent about an hour interviewing them.
I stuck to my guns, more or less, but didn't flat-out say no, debating it with my translator, and eventually one of the women said "BYE MUZUNGU!" and we left (that's the Swahili term used for white people).
As soon as I shut the car door, emotion took over reason and I started crying. They are so poor. It was nothing for me. Why shouldn't I give them money? Why is it any less ethical to give money to some women who need it for food or high school classes than to give cab fare to someone who wants to take a cab to a studio interview? Or to buy a beer for a source to try to make it more of a social occasion than an interview, and thereby ease the path to getting intel for a story?
The counter-argument is that it's not good to set the precedent of exchanging money for access to an interview, but for people in that kind of poverty, it doesn't seem to be as clear-cut as it would be if one were paying to gain an advantage like an exclusive interview. Maybe it should be the precedent, or at least an option. Who am I to decide that my ethics apply in a place where people can't afford to go to secondary school? Who then can't get decent jobs and can't afford to send their kids to secondary school either?
When I was in Rwanda nine years ago, a lot of organizations would give money to journalists who covered their press conferences. They claimed it was to cover expenses like transportation, but they also sent shuttles to pick up people from their newsrooms. I was shadowing someone and followed her into line, signed my name in a register and came away with...I think about the equivalent of $10. I was so horrified that I immediately donated that amount to a charity. I think that memory coloured my reaction the other day, firming my resolve. Later on, sitting in my lovely hotel room with a double-bed and electricity, and listening to a thunderstorm outside, that resolve washed away and left only guilt.
Do you see the faint rainbow? It's a full freaking rainbow. I can't remember having ever seen that before. (Laura Payton)
I was going to write an actual post, but it's late (okay, 9:30 p.m. local, but for some reason in Tanzania I function like I'm 70) so instead I offer some photos of my recent trip to Tabora region. It's a relatively rural area with the country's worst indicators. Despite that, it struck me as less impoverished than Singida - the houses I could see from the roads we travelled seemed sturdier and larger, fewer people seemed to be just hanging out or standing around, and most people's clothes were cleaner and in better condition. I'll have to do a bit of digging to find out which region actually has the higher income to see if those observations are born out in fact.
On a totally unrelated note, thank you to those who have been asking about my dad. He got out of the hospital soon after I left and he is doing really well. He had great care.
Before I get to more of the loveliness...behold the bathroom I had for the past two nights.
There was a showerhead...which was rusted over and didn't work.
I now have much improved accommodation in a much bigger centre. Never has a lukewarm-to-cold shower made me as happy as today's.
I'm on the road again tomorrow to do more interviews, and trying to cram in one or two on Friday, but I'm starting to sort of hope they fall through so I have some time to transcribe and just gather my thoughts a bit. I have transcribed most of the first two days of interviews, but I have another three days' worth to do, nevermind what I gather tomorrow. Plus I should be blogging! The internet situation the first half of this week didn't help with that.
Anyway. Loveliness abounds, even steps away from that bathroom.
I have not screwed with this photo in any way. The light is just magical here. (Laura Payton)
Me with a Care Canada community health worker in Tabora region.
Members of a village savings and loan program. (Laura Payton)
This is where we had lunch yesterday. (Edited to add: the food was delicious. But I'm not sure how hygienic it is). (Laura Payton)
A nutrition class meets outside because they don't have an office. When it rains, they take cover under trees until it's dry enough to continue. (Laura Payton)
A World Vision Tanzania official watches a community health worker instruct a woman on breastfeeding. (Laura Payton)
Patients wait at the only hospital in a district of 272,000 people. (Laura Payton)
A woman sits next to her newborn baby. She shares this room with three other new moms. (Laura Payton)
Bowls of water line the wall in a maternity waiting home, where women can spend days awaiting delivery rather than trying to travel hours over rutted roads to the hospital when they're in labour. There is no running water in the building, and the women sometimes sleep two to a bed due to overcrowding. (Laura Payton)
A clinic vaccination room. (Laura Payton)
Apologies for the graininess of the photos - reposting these from facebook until I get home to my laptop.
Children in Singida region, Tanzania, clamour for an iPhone so they can see a picture of themselves. (Laura Payton)
It's the end of my first work week in Tanzania and I have to keep reminding myself that I've made it. It's been a blur so far, mostly because I got right to work due to the schedule of one of the NGOs whose project I was visiting.
I arrived in Arusha Tuesday night and left Wednesday morning for Singida, a rural region with the main town about a five-hour drive south-west of Arusha. Most people there depend on farming for a livelihood, although it sounds like it's mostly to feed their families: I was told a few times that "My husband doesn't have a job, he's a farmer."
It was a quick re-introduction to how differently people live than the majority of Canadians. One woman close to my age has six children and primary school education. When I told her we were about the same age, she laughed like I was making a hilarious joke. Once I started interviewing, I realized there was more than a Swahili-English language barrier: the words and concepts used in international development have very little meaning to someone with almost no education who likely hasn't travelled outside her region.
I visited several sites for the World Vision Canada project in Singida, which ended at the end of March (the staff have been kept on for a few months to wrap it up). Unsurprisingly, the people I spoke to want it to continue for at least another two years. While the doctors I interviewed have relatively pricey requests like a new operating theatre, other health workers hope for more simple items. One nurse said she'd really like a light for the exam room so they can insert IUDs (a form of long-term birth control) there rather than trying to get into the district's only operating theatre. A community health worker said he'd like some rain gear or even an umbrella because when he visits families during the rainy season, his materials get soaked.
The first visit has me energized and raring to go to the next location. More photos to come next week.
Photo of two women walking in Tanzania courtesy of Jason Ho.
This afternoon I left my father, smiling proudly, in his worn blue hospital gown so I could continue finish packing up gear for my trip.
My parents were visiting when my dad started to have some heart troubles. We're still not entirely sure what the problem is, and because I leave very soon for the fellowship, I will likely take off for Tanzania without knowing exactly what's wrong. I'm incredibly torn about whether to go, but my dad is doing well right now. It's been very strange to visit with him in a hospital bed - he seems totally normal aside from the setting and the nice men and women in scrubs who keep coming by to see how he is.
This is so much bigger than any of my previous, now piddly concerns - fears about whether my visa would be processed in time, having to switch countries at what felt like the last minute.
My parents are adamant that I go. The first words out of my mom's mouth were "You are GOING to Tanzania," and my dad looked at me (over the oxygen mask and four ambulance attendants) and fretted over adding to my stress level (yes, this is where you can stop and wonder at what thoughtful, committed parents I have).
At the same time, it's a difficult time for my family. Had something like this happened when my parents were at home, I would want to fly back home to be with them. Instead, it happened in my town and they are here for the foreseeable future, and I am flying to the other side of the world.
Full speed ahead.
There's a wide array of development work that Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are doing around the world. They've done it, in some cases, for decades, and will keep doing it no matter what happens to the funding from the Canadian government.
But it's sometimes hard to conceive of what that work might entail. If you look through the project browser on the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development's website, you'll see that maternal, newborn and child health projects can include anything from helping build clinics or train community health workers to teaching people about healthy foods and how to get them. From what I've seen and heard in interviewing NGO spokespeople over the years, it's also shifted a bit - in 2010/2011, a lot of people were talking up micronutrients and vaccinations to help improve children's health. Now they're talking a lot more about birth registration and other data collection.
All the problems are multi-layered and lead seamlessly to all kinds of other challenges in a way that you can't really have a focused conversation about any one solution because it inevitably segues into something separate but related - like how if a child isn't registered when she's born, how do we know whether she survives to age five? And how do we know whether her country is hitting its targets for decreasing the number of children under five dying?
When she's older, if she doesn't have a birth certificate, there may be a law against child marriage in her country, but without one she can't prove she's too young. If she's married as a young teen and impregnated - very possibly because she's been raped - she's more likely to have complications because her body isn't developed enough to handle the pregnancy. And more likely to have a child with health problems.
Last year, the Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health gave out bags with small samples and leaflets to MPs to explain what kind of work its members are doing through Canada's funding. Some of those samples are in the photo above.
The gloves, soap and plastic sheeting are examples of what you might find in a clean birth kit (this one came from World Vision Canada). They cost less than 50 cents.
The two little red pills, provided by the Micronutrient Initiative, cost four cents to make and are aimed at helping the 190 million children who are vitamin A deficient.
The little foil package provided by SickKids' Centre for Global Child Health contains sprinkles, which are a blend of micronutrients.
The green and red string of beads is from Save the Children and helps community health workers count the number of breaths a child takes in a minute. If he hits the red beads, then the worker knows the child has pneumonia and needs treatment, according to the information provided with the beads.
These are all pretty simple things. There are so many more layers - including education, empowering women and broad health policy - but for pulling a life-saving solution out of a bag, those look pretty good.
My permanent state of mind over the past few weeks.
Well. It took a few days of phone calls, research and thinking, but after I realized Ethiopia wouldn't work for this trip, I decided to go with Haiti.
There are a few reasons for this, but primarily I think it'll be interesting to look at Canadian aid in two countries with totally different environments. In Tanzania, President Jakaya Kikwete has worked with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on making aid more accountable. Haiti, on the other hand, has had its share of political problems and Canada has looked at cutting back its commitment there. If I'm to examine Canada's aid effectiveness - an enormous proposition that makes me wonder why I so grandly pitched it - then these could be two extremes.
Canada has focused its maternal, newborn and child health programming in 10 countries. Any of them would make fascinating stories. Ethiopia, for example, has seen great results, in part because of the level of control its government exercises.
I only have two months away from my normal job to get this project done. I'll have all of my travel done within six weeks, which sounds like a substantial amount of time but doesn't feel like it when I look at my calendar. That includes a couple of days in NYC to do interviews at the UN, and leaves me two weeks to write and edit my work. Consider my nerves wracked.
At least I'm prepared for the next time I plan to travel to Ethiopia??
Reposted from an April 2 google+ post:
Planning had been going pretty well as I started the slow process of setting up visits to different projects in Ethiopia and Tanzania. I'm already a month or so away from my planned departure. But the past few days I started hearing a bit more about the problems Ethiopia's election could cause - difficulties getting a journalist visa, maybe some travel restrictions.
A May election and its travel consequences just weren't on my radar when I wrote my pitch in November.
Now it turns out it's likely there will be a travel ban imposed, possibly until the end of June. So even if I made it into the country before that happened, it could be hard to get out. Plus, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Development and Trade could put their projects on hold around the election, and some NGOs will place restrictions on their workers.
All of that means Ethiopia is no longer an option for me. I intend to be back in Canada by mid-June, writing and editing my work.
I'm now looking for a new country to visit. Back to square one after five months of research on Ethiopia.
I took this photo of school kids in Rwanda when I visited Kigali in 2006.
The following is an edited version of my pitch, which I submitted in November, 2014.
In January, 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a group of elite global economic leaders in Davos, Switzerland that Canada was going to make the health of mothers, newborns and children the focus of his time as chair of the G8 and G20.
Harper was more associated with Tim Horton’s and hockey - not to mention cold, hard political calculations - than with international development and multilateralism. He isn’t exactly known as a softie and he’d often criticized the UN. But there he was, telling an international audience that Canada cared about maternal, newborn and child health and that it was shocking how appallingly the world had fared so far in lowering deaths among the world’s poorest. Progress on those two Millennium Development Goals (reducing child mortality, also known as MDG 4, and improving maternal health, MDG 5) was slowest of the eight global targets, which were created in 2000 and aim to improve life in developing countries.
The statistics Harper cited were dire, even after years of slow improvement: more than half a million women died in pregnancy every year, while nearly nine million children died before their fifth birthdays.
(Those numbers have since improved: in 2013, an estimated 289,000 women died in pregnancy or labour and 6.3 million children died before their fifth birthdays.)
Later that year, Harper announced $2.85 billion from Canada, for a total of $7.3 billion in aid from countries around the world. The support for maternal, newborn and child health, or MNCH, would be known as the Muskoka Initiative. He also pushed for more accountability in how that money was spent, co-chairing a UN commission with Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Tanzania. Harper has since pledged an additional $3.5 billion for 2015 to 2020.
The money would go to everything from micronutrients and vaccinations to training health workers and educating women about their health: simple and often cheap ways to save millions of lives.
2015 is the deadline for those MDGs, and June will mark five years since the world, led by Harper, zeroed in on maternal and child health. I want to research and report on whether Canada has made a difference, both financially and through our attempt to take the lead, and look at what comes next.
In September, 2015, the UN sets its post-2015 goals. Negotiations are underway and have whittled down a list of 40 goals to 17, each with multiple targets. Many experts believe ending child marriage should be one of those goals, a push Canada seems primed to support: Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has already been advocating to end child marriage, something that would go far in helping improve a number of the MDGs. [APRIL 12, 2015 NOTE: Baird has since retired from politics. Rob Nicholson is now Canada's foreign affairs minister.]
This is the perfect time to visit some of the projects and countries affected by the Canadian funding to see whether the Muskoka Initiative has actually made a difference.