Earlier this year, Mr. Harper made a promise to lead the world's richest nations in reducing the 8.8 million unnecessary child deaths and the deaths of more than 500,000 women from complications during pregnancy, the birth process and immediately following child birth. We are very pleased to see this government re-emphasize its commitment to child and maternal health in this budget and to see an 8% increase in the international assistance envelope for 2010. 
 
But, it remains unclear whether Mr. Harper will be able to keep his promise to the 8.8 million young children and their moms by freezing development assistance (ODA) next year. This freeze may limit the resources Canada has at its disposal to meet its commitment to the child and maternal health initiative while ensuring stable funding for other priorities. We are anxiously waiting to see how the government will meet its promises with the pending freeze and encourage the government to continue with an increase to ODA funding past 2010-2011.

World Vision Canada is pleased to see the budget reflect the commitment to increase food security funding that Prime Minister Harper made at the 2009 G8. This support will have the most impact if it is directed towards helping poor smallholder farmers, the majority of whom are women, to sustainably grow more nutritious food and increase their incomes. A generation of poor children growing up healthy depends on it.