There are myriad reasons for this tragedy, including that for every 10,000 of the population there are just two skilled health workers. This means 74% of pregnant Somali women do not receive any skilled pre-natal care during pregnancy — the highest rate globally. In a conflict-ridden country that has not seen political and economic stability in two decades, as in most wars, it is women and children that are the most affected. It is innocents, on the side-lines of the battlefield, who are the most vulnerable and are routinely side-lined by the international community.

Great fanfare accompanied theSomalia Conferencehosted last week in London. International donorspledged more than $300,000 millionto bolster the rebuilding of the institutions and security apparatus of the revamped state. The meeting’s co-hosts British Prime Minister David Cameron and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud trumpeted Somalia’s progress in recent months, in light of the installation of a credible democratic government, the subdual of Al-Shabaab militants and the onslaught against the scourge of piracy on the Horn of Africa coast.

But where were the discussions and resolutions on Somalia’s dying mothers and babies? They did take place, which is as it should be. But, their plight was tackled, as always, on the side-lines of themain event a week early. This faux-pas speaks to the continued failure of haute politics to give equal prominence to ‘grassroots’ issues.

It is critical that there is a mainstreaming of gender-related and children’s issues, so that the spotlight is placed on the traumas faced by women and children with as much glare as is often afforded to issues of a military, political and economic imperative. Research shows thatSomalia’s youthwant to be given a chance to be educated and long for the opportunities of work satisfaction and economic security. Just how many potentially like-minded youngsters haven’t had the chance to make this kind of positive contribution to their country because they did not live passed their 5th birthday? How many mothers have died giving birth to the potential creators of a new and conflict-free Somalia?

It is heartening - following a recent visit to Somalia of the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict - that a commitment to the protection of vulnerable women has been mooted and that the establishment of a National Human Rights Commission is on the agenda. But more needs to be done with the international community putting greenbacks on the table, to ensure that the survival of Somalia’s vulnerable women and children be placed at the top of the priority list. As the Save the Children report highlights, globally, “funding [for new born programmes] — and the political and programme priority that donor resources help build - still lags far behind the need.”

This is why the millions of dollars pledged at the Somalia Conference should be equitably apportioned to ensure that: as many health workers as soldiers are trained and remunerated; as many neonatal resuscitation devices as military weapons are purchased; as many infant antibiotics as bullets flow into the country.

Some critics have characterised the Somalia Conference as an example of Britain’s exertion of soft power - the writing of a neo-colonial narrative that will pave the way for the former colonial power and other interested parties to stake their claim on Somalia’s minerals and ideological imperatives. Whatever the truth of such an assertion, this critic, the author of this column, asserts that there are societal minerals that are of import and these are Somalia’s future generations. The ideological imperatives that should concentrate the mind are those that focus on protecting those future generations, and their nurturers, from the living legacy of war-torn Somalia.