Millennium Development Goals: Women and Girls

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

It is extremely important to get girls as well as boys into school. A lot of progress has been made and there is almost gender parity, except in areas where there is conflict and, particularly, rural areas. The noble Baroness rightly highlights the project in Nigeria. We are working with UNICEF to manage the girls’ education project, which aims to get 1 million girls in school, and the results monitoring process has been agreed with UNICEF and is being implemented.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister acknowledged, the goal relating to maternal mortality reduction will not be met by 2015. However, a great deal has been achieved by programmes such as Making It Happen by the Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and I declare an interest as a supporter. Will the Minister assure the House that support from her department for progress like this that has made a huge difference will continue, so that this is not unfinished business past 2015?

[Baroness Northover]

It certainly must not be allowed to be unfinished business after 2015. The noble Baroness is right that progress has been made—maternal mortality has dropped by 45%—but we need to take that much further forward.