It means the world is willing to look the other way when a teenage girl dies from a back-street abortion, or a pregnant woman is battered and loses her baby. The world would no doubt like to see things change, but seemingly not enough to make them change. Raising resources domestically or internationally is only half the problem. Managing the money is the other. Necessary precautions, combined with a plethora of rules and procedures, delay fund releases.
Programs suffer and mothers continue to die in childbirth.
Systems of funds flow need to be unclogged if health budgets are to do their job. In the last decade, India has sought some solutions by introducing new ways of routing and releasing money intended for reproductive health, such as through the use of Societies. But introducing innovations to bypass the regular funds flow system means ignoring the system rather than improving it. This is something that the country can ill-afford if health budgets are to be effectively managed and community expectations met. Comments about this story.