WATERLOO, Canada — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper — who is the 2010 president of the Group of Eight industrialized nations — has summarized the "Muskoka Initiative: Maternal, Newborn and Under-5 Child Health" by exclaiming "We have been successful."
While the media has focused on this "success" — with the main debate criticizing the exclusion of abortion from the maternal health dialogue after Harper refused to fund safer abortions in developing countries — a crucial issue has yet to be questioned: Why are we praising a declaration that is nothing more than a regurgitation of the very same commitments made 20 years ago?
While millions of global citizens, particularly in industrialized countries, have been following the merits and failures of this so-called new initiative, most of those who work in the area of international development are experiencing an odd form of deja vu.