<div><p>Canada will champion a new G8 identity focused on ending child mortality and other health woes in poorer countries when it hosts the club of industrialized nations in June, the government said Tuesday.</p><p>Details of the plan are to be outlined in Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's keynote speech at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week, his spokesman Dimitri Soudas told a briefing.</p><p>It will be the first time Harper attends the January 27-31 WEF conference.</p><p>Soudas said Harper would use the address to lay out his plan for a new G8 agenda focusing on "helping the poorest and most vulnerable."</p><p>In an opinion letter published earlier in the daily Toronto Star, Harper said the G8 needs a new essential purpose after being displaced last year by the larger G20 as the premier forum for fiscal and economic cooperation.</p><p>Going forward, the "smaller, but still influential" G8 should focus on "security concerns and human welfare," he said.</p><p>Harper commended the massive international relief effort in Haiti after a devastating quake struck two weeks ago.</p><p>But he added, "it should not take a natural disaster to turn our attention to the less fortunate.</p><p>"The world's poor have been hit hardest by the global economic downturn and in these difficult times we must address their pressing needs."</p><p>"Indeed, all too frequently, tragedy strikes those that can least afford it. The lack of the most basic services can lead to dire consequences, especially for the world's most vulnerable populations."</p><p>Harper wrote that it was "not acceptable" that 500,000 women die each year during pregnancy and childbirth and nine million children die before their fifth birthday, even though inexpensive solutions such as providing clean water, inoculations and better nutrition are available.</p><p>"As president of the G8 in 2010, Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world's poorest regions," he said in the letter.</p><p>"As its contribution to this G8 initiative, Canada will look to mobilize G8 governments and non-governmental organizations as well as private foundations."</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=67838152&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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