VOA常速英语2007-Campaign Aims To Register All Births And Deaths

By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
29 October 2007

The Health Metrics Network, a global partnership¹ sponsored by the World Health Organization, is launching a drive to get countries to register all births and deaths. The World Health Organization says newborn babies who are unregistered miss out on all sorts of social, political and economic benefits for life. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

Practically everybody in rich, developed countries is registered at birth. Since these countries are able to keep track of births, deaths and marital² status, they are able to allocate³ their resources wisely.

The World Health Organization says it allows governments to know whether more money should be spent on education or labor⁴ or health programs.

The situation is very different in developing countries. The World Health Organization says almost 40 percent of 128 million global births go unregistered and in the least developed countries that figure can go as high as 70 percent.

Carla Abouzahr is Deputy Executive Secretary of the Health Metric Network. She says the statistics on death are even worse. In sub-Sahara Africa, she says only one in every 10 deaths is registered.

"We are currently spending $260 billion a year on assistance for health development and we do not know if that money is being spent wisely as well because the statistics that we need to be able to track the effectiveness of the spending simply are not available," said Abouzahr. "And, they are not available because we do not have good data on who is born and who dies and why they die."

The Health Metric Network is assisting more than 60 low-income countries to improve their registration⁵ systems. Abouzahr says the registration drive marks the start of intensive work to help six countries most in need of help.

She says the Network already has started working with Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Syria. By the end of the year, three other countries will be chosen for special assistance.

She describes the case of Sierra Leone, which is emerging from 11 years of civil war. She says the country is receiving a lot of assistance from donors⁶ to build up its health system.

"It is going to be absolutely essential that they have a good idea of 'A' what are going to be from the demands on the health system," said Abouzahr. "How many babies are going to be born because that will really influence five, 10, 15 year planning framework for the allocation of resources. And, it is also going to be essential for them to know what is the pattern of mortality that they are facing. You know, are they facing an AIDS epidemic⁷. Are they facing the dual⁸ epidemic of, the combination of communicable and non-communicable diseases."

Abouzahr says Sierra Leone cannot answer these questions without knowing who dies and from what cause.

The Health Metric Network says people who are not counted at birth do not count. It says children who are not registered at birth do not legally exist and this deprives them of a wide-range of benefits. It says they can lose out on an education, be stripped of voting rights and left off the social welfare rolls.

1 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

2 marital   

adj.婚姻的，夫妻的

参考例句：

• Her son had no marital problems.她的儿子没有婚姻问题。
• I regret getting involved with my daughter's marital problems;all its done is to bring trouble about my ears.我后悔干涉我女儿的婚姻问题, 现在我所做的一切将给我带来无穷的烦恼。

3 allocate   

vt.分配，分派；把…拨给；把…划归

参考例句：

• You must allocate the money carefully.你们必须谨慎地分配钱。
• They will allocate fund for housing.他们将拨出经费建房。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 registration   

n.登记，注册，挂号

参考例句：

• Marriage without registration is not recognized by law.法律不承认未登记的婚姻。
• What's your registration number?你挂的是几号？

6 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

8 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。