Becca Degan, UK
“In the early years the focus remains
on reducing child poverty, improved housing, improved nutrition and lifestyles for
women and their children… In addition, ensuring access to free high quality
early education and childcare for all children including those with
disabilities remains a key focus.” 1
Reading
this description of health priorities, reducing poverty, ensuring access to
education for all, where would you assume the author was describing?
This is
an extract from Bradford City Council’s 2012 Public Health Report. In 2010
27.1% of children in Bradford were living in poverty, compared to the national
average of 21.9%. It has one of the highest rates of infant mortality across
England, with the majority being from deprived areas2. A response to
these statistics has seen the launch of a number of projects, including Born in
Bradford, a project that has the potential to help those much further afield
than Bradford due to its focus on equality.
As the post Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) are being discussed, I think child and maternal health in Bradford
provide a good example of how these goals can be made truly universal. Post 2015
goals should have a greater focus on inequality and the use of disaggregated
measures, committing governments to tackling inequality, in areas such as
Bradford, as well as in cities and countries more traditionally considered as experiencing
poverty. International development agendas could be seen as an opportunity to
engage in the worldwide community to figure out and action the best ways for
all of us to help those in poverty, in our own neighbourhoods, towns and cities
in the UK, as well as those on other continents.
Encouraging our politicians to focus on and
commit to tackling inequalities has the potential to benefit people worldwide. Inequality
has been a major barrier to achieving the current MDGs, despite broad success across
several goals, many of the world’s poorest or most vulnerable have made little
or no development progress over the past fifteen years and inequalities are now
greater than ever3.
Bradford City Council has drafted their
Health and Wellbeing Strategy for 2013-2017 and there first goal is to ‘Give
every child the best start in life in the Bradford district’, this is
determined as important due to the high levels of child poverty and infant
mortality in Bradford. Their strategy also calls for ‘a healthy standard of
living for all’, stating that the gap between the richest and the poorest parts
of Bradford is greater than the gap in most other Local Authority areas4.
In the post 2015 global agenda we need to
address issues that are truly universal, working together to ensure that those
across the globe who are most vulnerable are not forgotten about and left
behind, regardless of whether they live in a rich or poor nation. These goals
should be and could be used by citizens in the UK as well as globally to
pressure our governments to achieving goals that have been internationally
ratified.
References:
About the author:
Having recently completed an MA in
Globalisation and Development I am looking to develop my knowledge of global
issues, to try and influence policy makers on topics that I am passionate
about. I currently work in the health sector in pursuit of a career in
public health policy and am particularly interested in the role that social
media has on engaging citizens with policy.
