NEWS RELEASES
FIRST SPOUSES ENDORSE SIX PROJECTS ONTHE HEALTH OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE AMERICAS
October 1, 1999 (3:30 p.m. EDT) No. 216
FIRST SPOUSES ENDORSE SIX PROJECTS ON
THE HEALTH OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE AMERICAS
Participants at the Ninth Conference of First Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas
ended their two-day conference today with an endorsement of six projects that will ensure the long-term health
of women and children in the Americas.
"We have learned a great deal from each other over the past two days about the current situation of women
and children in the hemisphere," said Conference Chair Aline Chrétien. "The projects endorsed here today are
key to promoting the long-term health of women and ensuring a new generation of healthy and safe children."
The projects range from ensuring the right of every child to receive a birth certificate to preventing the mother-to-child transmission of HIV and AIDS. The common thread running through all of these projects is the role of
public education in achieving their objectives.
"Raising public awareness plays a critical role in understanding the issues affecting women and children and in
contributing to a solution," said Huguette Labelle, Moderator of the Conference and President of the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA). "A central element in each of the projects is a requirement to
educate children, parents, caregivers and the community on women's health and child development programs."
The annual conference brought together 31 of the most influential women in the Americas to discuss the
themes: "Women's Health" and "A Healthy Start: Investing in Children 0-6." It also drew 103 non-governmental
organizations from Canada and the hemisphere for a parallel two-day conference and fair.
At the next Conference of Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas in Haiti in 2000,
conference participants will be updated on the status of projects that they endorsed today. A backgrounder on
the six projects is attached.
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The Declaration of the Spouses of the Heads of State and Government of the Americas is attached.
For further information, media representatives may contact:
Denys Tessier
Hemisphere Summits Office
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
(613) 944-1690
Media Relations Office
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
(613) 995-1874
This document is also available on the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's Internet site
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca and the Hemisphere Summit Office's Internet site http://www.americascanada.org
Backgrounder
PROJECTS ENDORSED BY FIRST SPOUSES OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT
OF THE AMERICAS
Registration of Children Across the Americas is a campaign to ensure that all children in Latin America and the
Caribbean are registered by 2005. Each year, more than one million children born in Latin America and the
Caribbean are not registered.
This United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) project will work with civil registration offices and organize
widespread information campaigns, targeting children from ethnic minorities, rural areas and low-income
groups. The goal is to provide all children with birth certificates, which are needed for children to be vaccinated,
treated at health centres and enrolled in school.
This project will work to make people aware that it is compulsory to register births; to ensure the registration is
free-of-charge and transparent; to eliminate red tape in civil registry offices to make registration easier; and to
inform parents of the need and right of their children to have a legal name.
Early Childhood Care for Survival, Growth and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean is a UNICEF
initiative that promotes the idea that the best ways to ensure that children develop to their fullest potential in
school is to pay attention to their care before they enter the formal education system.
This public education campaign will promote the long-term benefits of early childhood education, i.e. the years
from birth to six years of age, as essential to providing children with the skills and values needed to ensure they
reach their greatest potential.
Adopting an integrated approach that involves pre-school teachers, parents and caregivers, and the
community, this project will promote the importance of developing early childhood education policies, strategies
and programs. The project also aims to teach children from an early age about their rights as laid out in the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Integrated Management of Childhood Diseases is an ongoing project of the Pan American Health Organization
(PAHO) that seeks to reduce the high mortality rates from preventable diseases among children under five
years of age.
Each year, more than 250 000 children under the age of five die in the Americas due to preventable illnesses.
This project seeks to reduce the number of needless deaths by educating parents, communities and health-care providers on heath promotion and nutrition, and on the importance of vaccinations.
The DESAPER Project, or Perinatal Health Development Project, is an ongoing PAHO program to improve
perinatal, maternal and child health in four countries.
Launched in 1989, this far-reaching program is currently being carried out in Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and
Peru. This service network is made up of 85 health centres, eight major hospitals and eight regional referral
centres. It services a population of 500 000 people throughout an area of more than 30 000 square kilometres.
This final phase of the project will involve developing an action plan for participating governments to incorporate
the experiences of the DESAPER Project into their national health policies.
Prevention of Domestic Violence Through Children's Education is a project of the Inter-American Children's
Institute (IACI), a specialized agency of the Organization of American States (OAS). This project focuses on the
prevention of domestic violence through family education, in schools and through the media.
This project was conceived as an education tool and as a means of transmitting values and principles of non-violence to children. Domestic violence, when witnessed or experienced by children, affects their performance
at school and has long-term implications for their development.
The aims of this project are to organize public awareness campaigns in co-operation with local media; to
participate in the national planning, development and promotion of national policies and legislation related to
women, children and families; and to include the subject of non-violence in primary and secondary schools.
Prevention of AIDS in Mothers and Children is a project of the Joint United Nations Program on (UNAIDS) to
mobilize political and public support to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS.
This AIDS prevention and awareness campaign will focus on the transmission of the disease from mother to
child. More than 1.7 million people live with HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean; 390 000 are women
and nearly 30 000 are children. Mother-to-child transmission is the largest source of HIV infection in children
under the age of 15.
This project will address the need for an increased awareness of the basic facts of HIV transmission and
prevention, especially among young people; the mother-to-child transmission and the possibility of having an
uninfected child through a series of preventative measures; the availability of counselling and voluntary testing;
and the issues of stigma, fear, and human rights.
DECLARATION
OF THE NINTH CONFERENCE OF SPOUSES
OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT
OF THE AMERICAS
Ottawa, Canada
October 1, 1999
OTTAWA DECLARATION
We, the Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas and Government Delegates gathered in
Ottawa, Canada from September 29 to October 1, 1999 for our Ninth Conference, "Women of the Americas:
Agents of Change," in reaffirmation of our will and determination to contribute to the well-being of the people of
our nations, subscribe to the following Declaration:
1. We consider that the Conferences of Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas represent
a unique opportunity to foster the exchange of ideas, build hemispheric co-operation and integrate the efforts of
our respective countries in the fight against poverty for the full enjoyment of equal rights and opportunities for
all.
2. With the advent of the new millennium, all countries of the hemisphere will face common challenges and will
share common social development goals. We reaffirm our determination to approach these objectives in a
vigorous and integrated way with the participation, and for the benefit, of all sectors of society
3. We firmly believe that it is imperative to focus our efforts on behalf of those who are the most vulnerable,
who continue to face the obstacles arising from discrimination and injustice.
4. On the basis of the existing global and hemispheric consensus on social development goals, we recognize
the achievements attained to date and the need to consolidate them. We reaffirm our common will to pursue
these goals, giving priority to those human groups most in need of support and to the problems and social
services that require further attention.
5. We recognize the need for enhanced participation of civil society, and women in particular, with regard to the
measures aimed at the political, social, economic and cultural development of our countries.
6. We reiterate our commitment to the previous Declarations subscribed to by the Spouses of Heads of State
and Government of the Americas and we recognize their continuing validity.
7. We reiterate our commitment to continue working for the equity and empowerment of women, particularly
those in rural areas. We acknowledge the significant progress made in establishing regional and national plans
in support of rural women and we endorse the proposed co-operation fund developed for the implementation of
such plans.
8. We continue to strive toward the promotion of better health through preventive measures, the reduction of
violence, and more equitable access to health care services. We praise the achievement of those countries that
have successfully eliminated measles and other preventable diseases within their borders and encourage the
continued efforts of others to meet our common goal of eradicating measles throughout the Americas by the
year 2000.
9. We reiterate our support for the promotion of the well-being of women and children. We recognize that many
fundamental issues still need attention, including those related to reproductive health*, the prevention of
violence, equitable access to appropriate health services, and comprehensive early childhood development
programs. Therefore, our themes for this year's conference are: "A Healthy Start: Investing in Children 0 to 6"
and "Women's Health."
10. We declare our firm intention to continue to raise awareness and mobilize public support in our societies on
behalf of effective local initiatives to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly among women, adolescents,
and children.
11. We support the inalienable, immutable and universally recognized rights of children to receive love,
protection and understanding from their parents and to develop spiritually and socially, independently of cultural
and political circumstances.
12. We declare our firm commitment to support programs which improve the accessibility and quality of
perinatal care services by raising public awareness, training health care providers, strengthening community
participation, and taking actions to increase collaboration and mobilization of public opinion on these matters.
13. We are conscious that all children have the right to a name and nationality through birth registration.
Therefore, we declare our firm support for the strengthening of systems which guarantee full, timely, accessible
and accurate registration of children.
14. We support all efforts to reduce mortality and morbidity due to preventable diseases and nutritional
deficiencies among children under five years of age.
15. We acknowledge and affirm the need to guarantee the right of children to education and quality educational
services. Therefore, we support the development of comprehensive programs for the professional training of
early childhood educators and the strengthening of coordination and information networks between educational
institutions.
16. We recognize the need to educate children in a culture of peace in order to prevent violence and enable
them to grow and flourish with values and principles conducive to the creation of a safe and secure
environment.
17. We recognize the invaluable role played by regional and national non-governmental organizations and
international co-operation agencies in supporting and facilitating the implementation of the initiatives set forth in
this Declaration and we extend to them our sincere gratitude.
18. We express our gratitude to the spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada, Mrs. Aline Chrétien, and to the
people and the Government of Canada, for the kind hospitality extended during our stay.
19. We accept the offer of the spouse of the President of Haiti, Mrs. Géri Benoît-Préval, to host in her country
the Tenth Conference of Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas.
* Guatemala states that the expression"reproductive health", according to its legislation, should be understood
as "comprehensive health".
This Declaration is signed in four original languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese in the City of
Ottawa on October 1, 1999.
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