Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 62)
TUESDAY 16 OCTOBER 2007
DR GRACE
KODINDO
Q60 Hugh Bayley: How then would you
get women's control? If you persuaded the Government of Chad,
for example, or any other country, to allocate to the local maternity
and child health fund $30 per birth, how would you give women
of child-bearing age the control? How could you make that fund
accountable to the women? Could you realistically set up a mothers'
committee for each clinic in your country?
Dr Kodindo: Yes.
Q61 Hugh Bayley: How would you get
the managers? You could require the managers to issue a notice,
and put on a board of a clinic for those who could read to see
that $300,000 has been made available for this clinic. How would
you give them control over the money?
Dr Kodindo: Some organisation
of women; some group of women, to start to educate them and then
show them how to manage it.
Q62 Chairman: We might explore that
with some other witnesses. What I do want to say is that I think
your personal testimony is extremely valuable to us. Some of us
have seen the film—I certainly have seen it. I think what
concerns us, and you have summed it up in a simple sentence really,
is that all of these things can be done, and they can be done
affordably, and yet this is the MDG that is the most off course.
In a sense, you are telling us from practical experience that
it is really a disgraceful lack of will both nationally and internationally
by the people who matter.
Dr Kodindo: Yes.
Chairman: I think Dr Songane has demonstrated
that this is a job for men and women, very much so, although clearly
women who wish to rise up and fight for themselves will find people
who can support them. I think what we value from you is somebody
who is actually having to struggle in a very practical sense in
the field and faced real tragedies every day, and the frustration
of knowing that those individual tragedies are avoidable. We would
just like to thank you very much indeed for coming along and giving
us this evidence. I hope when we finish this inquiry that we will
have made some contribution to identifying some of the key buttons
to press that might just help certainly the UK to do what it can
to really bring this MDG back on track. I do not think any of
us should walk away from this accepting that it is not possible;
it clearly is possible. It is a matter of getting the right decisions
in place. Thank you very much indeed, you have been extremely
helpful.
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