The Spokesperson of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, has commended Rwanda on the progress registered in uplifting health standards in the country.

PMNCH, which operates under the World Health Organization (WHO), aims at accelerating efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Osotimehin, a former health minister in Nigeria, attributed the progress to the country’s high level of accountability and functioning institutions.

"Rwanda has performed credibly because they have put in place institutions that deliver results,” he said in a phone interview with The New Times yesterday.

The official, who is currently in New York attending the MDGs conference, further appreciated the fact that there is a human resource base in Rwanda which operates under a binding contract to achieve set targets.

"Most of Africa is not doing that,” he added.
The MDGs are eight internationally-agreed targets which aim to reduce poverty, hunger, maternal and child deaths, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality and environmental degradation by 2015.

Meanwhile, African Union (AU) officials have warned that effects of climate change continue to threaten the sustainability of the gains that the continent has made towards achieving MDGs.

"We now know that Africa has been significantly affected by the recent shocks,” a release quotes the AU Commission Chairperson, Jean Ping, as saying.

"It is therefore up to us to ensure that we implement the right polices to make sure that Africa escapes out of poverty”.

The President of the African Development Bank Group, Donald Kaberuka, cautioned that given the encouraging achievements made, international support for the MDGs in Africa remains high, but that it must be scaled up if the continent is to achieve wide-ranging success.

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