I’m in Davos this week to talk about an issue that I’m especially passionate about: helping mothers and children in the developing world.
Research shows that helping women stay healthy and achieve financial security has an amazing ripple effect. A healthy woman is more likely to give birth to a healthy child. She can earn money to feed her family, send her kids to school and buy medicine when they’re sick. When women thrive, their families thrive and their entire community prospers.
Earlier this week, I visited Benin and Malawi to see some of the great progress the two countries are making. In Benin I had the honour of travelling with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the first lady of France and an amazing advocate for women and children. We went to the village of Dangbo, where we visited a hospital that provides a full range of free health services for pregnant women. They have a fantastic program that integrates these services with HIV testing, counselling and treatment. We talked to several women there who had come in for prenatal care and then decided to get tested for HIV. If they test positive, they can immediately get drugs that will help keep them from passing the virus on to their babies.
Of course, not everyone has access to free medical care. That’s why there’s an important link between improving health and increasing access to savings accounts, which allow people to save up small amounts for medical emergencies and other needs. (You can visit www.gatesfoundation.org to learn more about why it’s important to increase access to the kinds of bank services that most of us take for granted.)
I got to see some of this work in and around Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, when I visited some sites run by Opportunity International Bank of Malawi. OIBM is building inexpensive branches – I visited one that was made out of three shipping containers–and setting up kiosks in shopping centres and post offices. They also operate seven trucks, some equipped with ATMs, that can bring affordable banking services to even the most remote locations. I talked to several OIBM clients who told me that before the trucks started coming to their town, they had to take long, expensive trips into the city to do their banking-or simply hide their savings under the mattress. But now the bank comes to them.
Malawi has also done a great job helping pregnant mothers and children stay healthy. Women can get all their health needs met at one place: nutritional counselling, vaccinations, malaria treatment, post-natal care and more. It’s a great example of an efficient, effective health system.
Whenever I get to travel to places like Malawi and Benin, I come home bursting with stories about what I’ve learned and the progress I’ve seen. I want everyone to know about the successes in these countries, so they’ll be excited about doing even more.
