HALIFAX - International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda says G8 development ministers agree flexibility is needed to allow each member state to determine how they can help achieve Canada's goals of improving the health of mothers and young children in developing countries.
At the break up of a two-day meeting of development ministers on Wednesday, Oda said her colleagues agreed to a set of guiding principles as they develop an agenda for the G8 leaders meeting in Ontario this summer that will focus on child and maternal health.
"We have agreed on a set of principles that will guide our work and a scope of actions that leave our ability, and the needed flexibility, for each country so that they can advise their leaders on how to build their basket of initiatives to support Canada's focus on mothers and children," she told a news conference.
The need for flexibility might be a key element of the plan as Canada take a different stand from many of its G8 partners on family planning in poor countries.
Earlier this week, Canada said it will not support funding for abortions in developing nations as part of a G8 family planning initiative that Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to headline the meeting he is hosting.
Oda has played down any rift with other G8 countries, particularly the United States and Britain, which both believe access to safe abortion should be part of a family planning program.
The Obama administration has said it supports a woman's right to safe abortions in developing countries. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month that a maternal health initiative must include the provision of safe, legal abortions.
Canada's stance on abortion has provoked sharp rebuke from the opposition in Ottawa and international aid agencies, who said it is irresponsible to deny the service to women in impoverished countries.
At the end of the meeting at Pier 21 on the Halifax waterfront, Oda said the ministers also agreed on the need to improve nutrition, disease prevention and that a range of care should be offered to pregnant women and their young children.
"Poverty reduction is our ultimate outcome," she said. "The G8 has the means to support developing countries in their efforts, to support Canada's objective and major initiative to have healthier mothers and healthier children."
