Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (L) shakes hands with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa February 20, 2007. Mr. Gates will visit Ottawa next week to discuss further collaboration on maternal and child health.Chris Wattie/Reuters
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is expected to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa next week to discuss global efforts to improve the health of mothers and children in low-income countries.
The Feb. 25 meeting will provide an opportunity to assess the federal government's past collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and discuss plans for the future, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said. Mr. Harper has made the health of moms and kids a key personal priority in recent years.
Mr. Harper used the 2010 G8 summit, which Canada hosted, to call on other countries to pledge money aimed at improving survival rates for mothers and children in poor parts of the world. The Prime Minister spoke personally with Mr. Gates in the months leading up to the 2010 summit and met with the influential businessman in New York in September of 2013.
Mr. Gates and Mr. Harper will also use next week's meeting to discuss how to ensure that maternal and child health remains a global priority and a part of the international development agenda after 2015. The United Nations is currently developing a new set of "sustainable development goals" to replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire at the end of this year.
The federal government played host to a summit on maternal and child health last year in Toronto, where Canada's contribution was touted by several global leaders including World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
The government says it has committed more than $6-billion to improving maternal and child health since 2010.
Mr. Gates's wife, Melinda, who also attended last year's event, said at the time that Canada's leadership was part of the reason maternal and child health was on the global agenda.
However, critics say Ottawa's contribution is overshadowed by the fact that the federal government has reduced overall aid spending in recent years – raising questions about its commitment to global poverty reduction even as it sets aside funding for moms and kids.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used an address at the conclusion of last year's maternal and child health summit to call on all countries to increase their foreign-aid budgets to meet a target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national income. Canada spent just 0.27 per cent of its GNI on foreign aid in 2013, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The government has also faced some criticism for excluding abortion services from its maternal and child health care funding. During last year's summit, Mr. Harper said the issue is "divisive" and could interfere with efforts to build a broad consensus on helping moms and kids.