A further $7m to help Pacific babies
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has signed off on a further $7 million to go towards reducing the high newborn mortality rates in the Pacific.
The Pacific has some of the world’s worst child mortality rates. Nearly 1700 children aged under 5 died in the Pacific in 2016. More than 80 per cent of those children died within their first year of life and half of those died in their first 28 days.
A newly released Unicef report shows New Zealand’s newborn mortality rate – the numbers of babies who die in their first 28 days, per 1000 births – is the average for a high-income country (3.0 deaths per 1000 births).
Meanwhile, rates in the Pacific are much higher. Kiribati has a rate of 22.6, followed by Vanuatu on 11.8, then Samoa (9.2), Fiji (8.8) and Tonga (6.8).
Unicef NZ executive director Vivien Maidaborn said the rates were ‘‘concerning’’, and called for New Zealand to further help mothers and babies access better healthcare.
Since 2013, the New Zealand Government has provided aid to Unicef under the Pacific Maternal Newborn and Child Health Initiative.
The previous round of funding ran out at the end of last year, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade carried out a review to establish how effective the programme had been.
Between July 2013 and 2017, Unicef made a noticeable difference, especially in the area of vaccination coverage - which is particularly poor in the Pacific - and nutrition, the review said.
On Tuesday, Peters confirmed New Zealand would continue to support Unicef as a long-standing partner of the New Zealand Aid Programme.
‘‘Funding will help the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Vanuatu as countries with some of the worst child health indicators,’’ Peters said.
The money would go towards early interventions for children, towards inexpensive resources, education and healthcare - things like clean water, immunisations in the hardest to reach places, and community education.