Chair, many factors contribute to the poor health of women and children, namely poverty, income inequalities, gender disparities, discrimination, poor education and gender-based violence. Gender equality and women's empowerment are central to securing the health of women and children.
As parliamentarians we represent women and children who make up a significant proportion of all our constituencies. We speak on their behalf and work to ensure that their rights and concerns are reflected in national development strategies and budgets. Our role is critical to the health and wellbeing of women and children, and we cannot rest until every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe and every child and newborn baby is healthy.
The UN Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, Reducing Child Mortality and Improving Maternal Health, focus parliaments on maternal, newborn and child health, and our role in holding the executive accountable on these goals will require dogged commitment.
It is critical that we start by determining where and why women and children are dying prematurely, identifying barriers that prevent people accessing services and interventions and locating the bottlenecks in delivering them.
It is also important to identify areas in which parliamentarians lack capacity and are limited in their effectiveness. Having access - as we have just heard - to sound and timely data, for example, better equips parliamentarians. Improving national statistical capacity is, therefore, important. A strong health system is essential in securing the health of women and children, and a political system that implements a right to health care will, of necessity, involve transfers of wealth to pay for relevant programmes.
We must have safeguards and accountability to minimise corruption. South Africa will do well to pay close attention to the experience of others in instituting the new National Health Insurance. As parliamentarians we will have an ever-increasing watchdog role to play in demanding integrity and honesty in the system in order to secure the health of women and children.
Lastly, without an active civil society, paper commitments to rights are in danger of meaning very little. A well-organised civil society is invaluable. Thank you. [Applause.]