The Millennium Developmental Goals were established in 2000 during the Millennium Summit of the United Nations (Stephen, 2008). The millennium Summit is composed of over 180 United Nations member states and international organizations. The MDGs were established as a blueprint following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration by the member states. The declaration sets to improve the lives of people in the world by the year 2015. The MDGs are financed by funds contributed by the G8 nations and funds from international organizations. The funds are distributed through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank.
The goals have been categorized into eight groups with set targets for each group. According to the United Nation Millennium Declaration, these goals are: reducing poverty, achieving global basic education, promoting gender awareness and women empowerment, reducing infant mortality, civilizing maternal health, fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other infectious diseases, promoting environmental conservation as a partner for development (Stephen, 2008).
Nurses have a role to play in fulfilling the goals set out in the MDGs. The best contribution is through goal number five. This goal aims at improving maternal health. Maternal health has contributed to the high mortality rates in the world. According to the United Nation Millennium Declaration, improving maternal health has been assigned two targets. Target A is to reduce the maternal ratio by about three quarters for 25 years starting 1990 (Dani, 2008). Target B aims at achieving global access to reproductive health at the end of 2015. To achieve this goal, several measures should be fulfilled. These are increasing skilled health personnel, use of contraceptives, reducing early pregnancies, promoting antenatal care, and family planning. Nurses can be integrated with all these measures (Dani, 2008).
The Nurse-Family Partnership program can be used by nurses to improve maternal health (Dani, 2008). This program is designed for maternal and child health nurses. The nurses visit mothers and their children at their premises. It is possible to build a long-term relationship during such visits. It is a flexible program that can be undertaken during leisure time or when a nurse is off duty. Nurses provide maternal and child health education. It is possible to identify the strengths of each client. The immediate response is possible to any question from the clients. The major area of concern should be for the nurses to educate on the preventive measures that can be used to reduce maternal and child mortality. Through positive encouragement, maternal health will be improved because prevention is better than cure.
The target group in the program should be first-time mothers. This target group requires a lot of Preventive health and prenatal practices for the mother during pregnancy. As such, a lot of trusts will develop between the nurse and the mother. Dissemination of information will be easy. Other areas to be included in the program are life coaching and health and development education. At the end of the program, all family members will be educated. Additionally, the program stands a better chance of attracting donor funding. This will be a major boost since most of the targeted families are poor. Financial aid will improve maternal health through assistance to the families. As such, the program will attract more participants and finally, maternal health will improve.
References
Dani, R. (2008). One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Stephen, M. (2008). The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.