The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a new initiative “…to help advance a comprehensive approach to women’s and children’s health” and said it will “invest $1.5 billion from 2010 through 2014 to support innovative projects addressing family planning; health care for pregnant women, newborns, and children; and nutrition.” This new pledge will add to the foundation’s spending in other areas that affect women’s and children’s health – such as developing and delivering children’s vaccines, and preventing pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.  Gates said that a significant portion of the new funding will support programs in India, Ethiopia, and other countries that have relatively high rates of maternal and child mortality. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/women-deliver-2010-100607.aspx