Blog Contributor:
Brie O'keefe
Jul 12th, 2010 2:51 PM UTC
By Brie O'keefe
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Back in January more the 200,000 ONE members signed our petition to cancel Haiti’s external debt and help the country rebuild from the terrible earthquake that struck on 12 January.
6 months on we thought it would be useful to report back on what happened next.
At the handover of the petition during the G7 finance ministers summit in the small Arctic Canadian town of Iqaluit (the first ONE petition to be delivered above the Arctic Circle!) we welcomed the news that the G7 had agreed to support debt relief.
According to our friends at the Jubilee Debt Campaign Venezuela cancelled $295 million of debts at the end of January, while at the end of March the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank together forgave a combined total of $472 million.
That leaves Haiti’s only outstanding debts at the moment being held by Taiwan and the IMF. Taiwan is difficult as many of these debts are held by commercial creditors who are unwilling to forgive them. The IMF, however, is currently working on a process to cancel Haiti’s remaining debts, though this hasn’t happened as yet.
The process of rebuilding Haiti will be a long one, but as ONE members we can celebrate the fact that a country facing so many obstacles on the road to recovery has, at least, one less injustice to face: Haitians will no longer be saddled with the debts accumulated by previous governments.
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Jun 24th, 2010 3:07 PM UTC
By Brie O'keefe
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ONE’s Mark Entwistle with our 58,000 signature strong petition
Yesterday, ONE’s Mark Entwistle delivered our petition with over 58,000 names calling for 3.5 million new health workers to help mothers and children to the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa, Canada.
Unfortunately, photographs aren’t allowed within the Langevin building itself, but we have it on good assurance that shortly after the above photo was taken Mark proceeded into the building to hand off the wishes of ONE members to the Canadian government.
This delivery presented some unique scheduling difficulties – on the eve of the G8, most senior members of the Canadian government are en route to Hunstville, Ontario, far away from the media centre for civil society organisations in Toronto where ONE will be based during the summit. So if we wanted to make sure the G8 heard our message before meeting, we needed to do it now, in Ottawa. But scheduling wasn’t easy given that the Prime Minister’s Office had quite a bit on their plates.
Luckily it all worked out for the best. In fact, it almost appeared that the fates conspired to make sure we could deliver our petition as a mere 20 minutes later, Ottawa was hit by an earthquake that caused all parliamentary and government offices to be evacuated!
During the summit ONE will be on the ground, fighting to make sure this G8 has the strongest outcome possible for people living in poverty. We’ll be keeping you updated through our blog and twitter – so watch this space!
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Jun 16th, 2010 3:02 PM UTC
By Brie O'keefe
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On June 3, ONE hosted a parliamentary reception at the National Gallery in Ottawa, Canada to raise awareness on maternal and child mortality ahead of the G8 in Muskoka later this month. Featuring a special appearance by model and activist Christy Turlington-Burns, we showed a clip of her new documentary No Woman, No Cry.
Ottawa-based ONE member Kirika Bussell attended the screening, and sent us this great photo and blog update:
People often advocate for a cause because of a direct link to a situation, or because we know someone who has been affected. It was her health scare following the birth of her first child that prompted Christy Turlington-Burns to learn about and then advocate for maternal and child health. She survived a common post-partum complication because of timely access to quality medical treatment, but not all women are so fortunate. It was this experience that inspired No Woman, No Cry.
 ONE member Kirika Bussell and Christy Turlington-Burns at the event in Ottawa
Every minute a woman dies from preventable complications during pregnancy or birth. What is stopping us from keeping these preventable deaths occurring again and again? If the answer lies in education, compassion and understanding, then Ms. Turlington Burns has made the job of spreading the message more accessible, and more importantly, she has put a human face on what could simply be seen as another sad statistic.
At the screening I was fortunate enough to speak with Christy Turlington Burns about the concept that we all have a stake in the future of maternal and child health. She agreed that it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, a father or mother, or if you’re childless- this is a universal issue.
When I volunteered to assist with the ONE’s screening at the National Gallery, one of my goals was to help maximize the opportunity to generate interest and keep the issue moving. Reflecting on this event after the fact, I can say my interest in this issue has only grown the more I’ve learned. I hope other ONE members come to feel the same way. Everyone’s reasons to act are different, but when we do act, together we can act as ONE voice for proactive, comprehensive change. The future is ours, but the choice to act is yours.
Kirika M. Bussell, Ottawa, Canada
If you’d like a sneak peak at Christy’s documentary, visit www.everymothercounts.org.
To sign ONE’s petition to the G8 for 3.5 million new health workers go to: http://www.one.org/us/actnow/g8healthworkers/
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Apr 20th, 2010 12:56 PM UTC
By Brie O'keefe
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On 26 April, G8 development ministers will be meeting in Halifax, Canada, to develop an action plan on maternal, newborn and child health. This builds on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s pledge in January that as president of the G8 in 2010, Canada will use this year’s summit to “champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world’s poorest regions.”
For those of us working to fight global poverty, this announcement came as welcome news. Despite improvements in global health in recent years, progress on maternal and child health is still far from where it should be. More than 300,000 mothers still die a year during pregnancy and childbirth and nearly 9 million children die before their 5th birthday.
Yet most of these deaths are the result of preventable and treatable causes. New support for cost-effective, proven interventions could make a dramatic impact on maternal, newborn and child health.
In the past, the G8 has acknowledged the urgent need in maternal and child health along with some of the solutions, but has made few concrete commitments on how it will help African countries make improvements. With Canada’s leadership and public commitment to this issue, 2010 can be the year when the G8 finally takes action.
It’s also an important time for these issues to be highlighted. When African Heads of State meet at the African Union Summit in July they will focus on maternal and child health. In September all global leaders will meet in New York to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with MDGs on maternal and child health being some of the most off-track, a robust plan from the G8 on this issue could galvanise the international community.
Ahead of the meeting of G8 development ministers in Halifax, ONE is outlining its recommendations to the G8. In order to be effective and to make a real difference in the lives of families in the world’s poorest regions, the G8‘s action strategy should:
- Be results-oriented – Canada and other G8 countries should commit to an action plan that combines high-impact interventions and long-term investments in local capacity with the ultimate goal of training 1 million health care workers in countries with a high burden of maternal and child deaths. They should work towards universal access to skilled birth attendants, universal access to bed nets, vaccination packages (including pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines) and anti-malarial drugs, and support comprehensive education campaigns about pregnancy to women of child bearing age. Finally, any initiative should have the goal of eliminating mother-to-children transmission of HIV by 2015.
- Mobilize new resources – Canada and other G8 countries should double bilateral Overseas Development Assistance to maternal, newborn and child health from approximately USD $4 billion in 2010 to USD $8 billion by 2013. This funding should be channelled through existing bilateral initiatives or new multilateral approaches in the future, such as an expanded Global Fund. In addition, the G8 should commit to full replenishment of multilateral organizations already working to improve maternal and child health such as GAVI (Global Alliance of Vaccines and Immunizations), the Global Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank.
- Emphasise integration, coordination and country ownership – In addition to new resources, Canada and other G8 countries should also commit to improving the quality and effectiveness of maternal and child health efforts through a commitment to the principles of country ownership, integration and coordination. The G8 and other donors should commit to working with developing countries to devise technically sound national health plans through their internal processes and mechanisms like the International Health Partnership and the private sector to coordinate support and mobilise resources. The G8 should also support and encourage efforts by developing country governments to transparently mobilise domestic resources for improving maternal, newborn and child health and the expansion of affordable access to quality care.
- Ensure accountability based on the TRACK principles – Canada and other G8 countries should use this initiative to pilot a robust G8 focus on accountability in line with the accountability matrix and the TRACK principles, which calls for new promises to be Transparent, Results-orients and Accountable, while also articulating any Conditionalities and mapping out a strategy to ensure that will be Kept.
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Feb 8th, 2010 4:42 PM UTC
By Brie O'keefe
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On Saturday February 6, 2010, Michèle Bertol, a Haitian Canadian led ONE’s delegation to hand over our petition for Haiti debt forgiveness to the G7 Finance Minister’s meeting in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada.
A town of only 7,000 people near the Arctic Circle, it was harder to think of a more remote location to hold an international summit. When ONE feared we’d be unable to send the message of our 200,000 signature-strong petition to the G7, we found Michèle.
Today I had the opportunity to chat to Michèle about why Haiti is so important to her, and how on earth she ended up living next to the North Pole.
![michele_bertol-2786[1]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2750/4341837806_dc44335f97_b.jpg)
ONE: So, in your opinion, how did the handover of the petition go?
Michèle Bertol: Really well, it was well organised. [Canadian Finance Minister] Jim Flaherty wasn’t able to attend, but Derek Vanstone, Minister Flaherty’s Chief of Staff accepted the petition in his place, and he knew we were waiting for him. In fact, just an hour before Minister Flaherty had had a press conference and made a statement saying the G7 supported Haiti debt cancellation, so we were feeling really positive ahead of the handover.
We really wanted the photo to show the Northern setting, so even though we were indoors and we had a G7 sign, we decided to leave our parkas on while we handed over the petition and use our ONE t-shirts as arm-bands so that the picture would really feel like it was taken in the North.
O: Can you tell us a bit more about how you ended up in the Canadian Arctic after being born in Haiti?
MB: I was born in Haiti, but when I was 8 years old, my parents decided we needed to leave the country – there was a terrible dictatorship, and like most middle class Haitians, they feared for the future.
In those days you could apply for a green card for the United States from within the country, so my mother and I boarded a plane for New York on a 2 week holiday visa, with small suitcases as if we were just going for vacation.
A year later my father and my little sister came, and together we move to Montreal, where I spent most of my adolescence. I became a planner, and I got married and then my ex-husband was offered an amazing opportunity to work in Northern Canada, so he came up first. A few months later a planning position opened up, and I got it – and now I’ve been here for more than 20 years!
I have the unique experience of being genetically built for hot weather. Generations of my ancestors were all built to deal with heat – and so moving up North has been an intense physical challenge. I’ve been nicknamed ‘The Bundled One’ in the local language over the years because in situations where everyone was wearing 4 layers, I’d be wearing 12 – but I needed it just to survive!
However, although it’s physically uncomfortable dealing with -40◦ weather, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the life I’ve been able to live here in the North.
O: Why was delivering this petition so important to you?
MB: Although I’ve lived most of my life in Canada, I am Haitian born, and I still have family there. When I saw what happened, my heart wept. First it wept for my family but they are alright, but I also felt a great sadness for what had happened in the country of my birth.
I feel a great connection to Haiti, and in all the photos on TV and in magazines, I saw myself in all of those people. I felt very intimately the impact of that disaster and so I did everything I could on a personal level to help. So obviously I was so happy to be able to participate in any way I could in ONE’s initiative to have Haiti’s debt cancelled.
O: So why do you think the work of ONE is important for countries like Haiti?
MB: I feel that with ONE, every member looks beyond themselves for something bigger. The 2 million people who form ONE and the 200,000 ONE members who signed the petition have one thing in common: they look beyond their own life and their own conditions; beyond colour of skin or location; they look beyond tradition or age. They look beyond all that and only focus on the fact that we are all brothers and sisters. And with a heart that has such an outlook on the world, you can accomplish anything. And this is an example of how when people with such a compassionate vision get together, they can move mountains.
O: Is there anything you’d like to say to the ONE members all over the world who signed this petition?
MB: On behalf of our small group in the North, I offer to you and to all the members of ONE my deepest thanks for your heartfelt response to the plight of the people of Haiti. Your work embodies the essence of human compassion. ONE achieved its objective it seems now the cancellation of the debt is now just a formality. As a Haitian, and on behalf of all Haitians, I offer my deepest thanks for helping give Haiti a chance.
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