{"id":4026,"date":"2013-09-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psi2030.wpengine.com\/hygiene-must-be-recognized-as-key-intervention-to-reduce-child-mortality\/"},"modified":"2018-05-22T22:24:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T22:24:36","slug":"hygiene-must-be-recognized-as-key-intervention-to-reduce-child-mortality","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/news\/hygiene-must-be-recognized-as-key-intervention-to-reduce-child-mortality\/","title":{"rendered":"Hygiene Must Be Recognized as Key Intervention to Reduce Child Mortality"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York, 24 September 2013 \u2013 Unilever<\/a>\u2019s soap Lifebuoy<\/a> today called for hygiene to be recognized as a key intervention to reducing child mortality, both in the last 900 days before the Millennium Development Goal<\/a> (MDG) deadline and in the post-2015 development agenda. Partnerships between business, NGOs and governments are crucial to accelerate live-saving handwashing programs at the necessary scale.<\/p>\n

As part of this week\u2019s 68th United Nations General Assembly in New York, Lifebuoy gathered experts from across public and private organisations to look at how handwashing with soap can help more children reach the age of five. Key in this discussion was the role the private sector can play in accelerating progress towards the MDG<\/a> which aims to reduce child mortality. Paul Polman, CEO Unilever, Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Karl Hofmann, President and CEO Population Services International (PSI), Pavanjit-Singh Bedi, Lifebuoy Global Brand Director, and Kajol, distinguished Indian actress, handwashing ambassador and Help a Child Reach 5 advocate, agreed that scaling up lifesaving handwashing with soap programs must be recognized as a critical policy to reduce child mortality.<\/p>\n

Paul Polman, CEO Unilever and member of the High Level Panel Post 2015, said: \u201cGovernments can find it hard to engage with programs that involve behavior change. Hygiene is an area which has been often overlooked. No business, government or UN agency can achieve the agreed reduction of child mortality alone, but by working together we can combine the expertise, resources and policy needed to achieve real change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Partnerships are vital in scaling-up lifesaving programs. One great example is the global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW<\/a>) established in 2001. A coalition of international stakeholders, including Unilever\u2019s Lifebuoy, whose focus is on handwashing and child health. Each year on 15 October, over 200 million people are involved in the celebration of Global Handwashing Day<\/a> in over 100 countries around the world. In addition, Lifebuoy works with for example global partners such as The Earth Institute<\/a> et PSI <\/a>to implement its handwashing behavior change programs across the world, teaching children, new mothers and community leaders this lifesaving habit.<\/p>\n

Lifebuoy has a proven model for handwashing behavior change and has now launched its Help a Child Reach 5<\/a> handwashing campaign to improve the health of Thesgora, a village with one of the highest rates of diarrhoea in India. Lifebuoy won\u2019t stop at Thesgora \u2013 the brand wants to expand its life-saving mission, village by village. The campaign won\u2019t stop until child mortality due to diarrhoea is eliminated.<\/p>\n

Kajol, award-winning Bollywood actress and Help a Child Reach 5 Lifebuoy advocate, said: \u201cHere at the UN Summit, policymakers and governments have an opportunity to look at what needs to happen if we are to hit the child mortality reduction target by 2015. I urge those discussing the outcome and recommendations of this summit to ensure that handwashing with soap gets the recognition it needs as the most cost-effective policy we have at our disposal to achieve child mortality reduction under five by two-thirds by 2015\u201d<\/p>\n

Results of Lifebuoy partnership\u2019s with Millenium Villages Project and PSI:<\/h3>\n

In 2012, the Millennium Villages Project<\/a> (MVP) and Unilever launched a new partnership to promote handwashing with soap to nearly 500,000 people in 80 rural villages and to strengthen Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiatives throughout the Millennium Villages. A preliminary evaluation of Lifebuoy\u2019s handwashing behavior change program in the Bonsaaso Millennium Village cluster in Ghana demonstrates the effectiveness of the program in sub-Saharan Africa<\/p>\n