News
It Makes Business Sense for the Private Sector to Invest in Maternal Health
- 23 July 2010
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Creating new business opportunities in the aftermath of the global economic financial crisis was the title and ambitious expectation of a two-day event, held from 22 to 23 July, organized by the African Private Sector Forum in the run-up to the African Union Summit in Kampala.
Bringing together some of the most prestigious names in business in Africa, speakers , panellists and key business magnates worked their way through an agenda of challenges facing the infrastructure, trade, ICT, energy, transport and agriculture. For the first time, a special session was also devoted to corporate social responsibility.
This was prompted in part by the need to make a link between the main theme of this year’s African Union Summit -- Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa -- and the corporate social responsibility of the private sector. This in itself shows a change in the attitude of the private sector as more African entrepreneurs are realizing that by getting involved in drives to reduce maternal and child death, African businesses will make significant gains for their current and future plans.
These affect a country’s ability to attain the millennium development goals, especially those related to poverty and to maternal and child death reduction, and is therefore a gain to be made by the business world getting engaged in social corporate responsibility.
During the forum, delegates from the corporate sector were urged by the Uganda National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Uganda Investment Authority to get involved in several ways, while a delegate from Egypt called for attention to be paid to the development of human capital as well as increased investment in youth.
Asked how this might be done and speaking on behalf of UNFPA, the United National Population Fund, and the United Nations Country Team in Uganda, UNFPA Representative, Janet Jackson, said, “social corporate responsibility can be done internally by companies ensuring supportive policies that advance gender equality, increase women in management, improve maternity and paternity benefits, access to HIV testing care and treatment, and by enforcing better quality regulations in business practices.”
She added, “externally, the business world can get engaged by championing social causes, for example, by financing social initiatives through special funds; by promoting social issues of maternal and child health; and by associating their companies, products and brand names with critical behaviour change messages and maternal and child health messages.”
Earlier, Patrick Bitature, Chairman of the Uganda Investment Authority and a leading Ugandan businessman and industrialist, had said: “even though the business sector in Uganda is aware of the fact that so many women are dying, we are doing very little to respond essentially because we do not know how to link this important issue with our daily activities.”
“We care. After all, these women are our mothers, sisters and neighbours. They are our colleagues and employees, but we have not done enough. We could spend more to help alleviate the situation by spending more on maternal and child health. It is even a corporate social responsibility,” Mr. Bitature admitted.
Janet Jackson suggested, “companies can set up sponsorship programmes like training midwives. This will help close the serious shortfall in the number of health workers needed, thus helping to ensure that health systems function better and every birth is safe. In communities, companies can develop initiatives with health centres, contributing through provision of vitally needed medical equipment and supplies and in ensuring timely communication and referral services to hospitals through partnerships with telecommunications. For example, private sector sponsored toll free lines could save mothers’ lives by calling for ambulance services in cases of emergencies”.
“These are some of the many creative possibilities open to the private sector. Research has shown that investing in maternal health and family planning can bring at least a threefold return for every dollar spent. It, therefore, also makes business sense for the private sector to be part of investing in maternal health,” Ms. Jackson stressed.
More could be done in terms of public-private partnerships in the social sectors and in health and education in particular. The meeting called for the corporate world to learn from and then expand on positive experiences of such initiatives in different parts of the world, as well as in Africa. “Such partnerships in general and the private sector in particular have considerable influence and potential to galvanize development and speed up the potential to attain the Millennium Development Goals, especially those related to maternal and child health,” she added.
