Generating political priority for maternal mortality reduction in 5 developing countries.
I conducted case studies on the level of political priority given to maternal mortality reduction in 5 countries: Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Among the factors that shaped political priority were international agency efforts to establish a global norm about the unacceptability of maternal death; those agencies' provision of financial and technical resources; the degree of cohesion among national safe motherhood policy communities; the presence of national political champions to promote the cause; the deployment of credible evidence to show policymakers a problem existed; the generation of clear policy alternatives to demonstrate the problem was surmountable; and the organization of attention-generating events to create national visibility for the issue. The experiences of these 5 countries offer guidance on how political priority can be generated for other health causes in developing countries.
Shiffman
Jeremy
J
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020, USA. jrshiffm@maxwell.syr.edu
D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D008428:Maternal Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D011050:Policy Making; D011057:Politics