Global Progress in Reducing Maternal Mortality

The number of women who are dying in pregnancy and childbirth is on the decline, according to new estimates released by the United Nations today.

Over the last 20 years, the number of annual maternal deaths has dropped by nearly 50%, falling from 543,000 in 1990 to 287,000 in 2010. This achievement is a testament to the global efforts undertaken to support mothers' health.

While global progress has been made, particularly in East Asia, many countries will not achieve Millennium Development Goal 5, which seeks to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015. Most of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The new estimates are developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and the World Bank.

Read the full report here. Also, learn more about how EngenderHealth supports maternal health programs around the world.

Global Artists and Activists Kick Off New Media Initiative and Online Video Contest to Spotlight Global Maternal Health

MDGFive.com offers free online video “remixer” to raise awareness

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010, NEW YORK—Next week, global leaders will descend on New York City for the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit to review progress made on the UN’s eight MDGs, which aim to reduce poverty worldwide by 2015. Launching today, in anticipation of the Summit, is a new media initiative that draws artists and activists together behind one goal: improving maternal health, the fifth MDG, on which progress has lagged most.

Cofounded by Emmy-winning filmmaker Lisa Russell and Grammy-winning singer Maya Azucena, MDGFive.com includes creative content by world-renowned musicians and poets, including Zap Mama, DJ Spooky, Toni Blackman, and Carlos Andrés Gómez, as well as visual material from filmmakers and photographers Christy Turlington Burns, Paul Blackthorne, and Azfar Rizvi. The site features a “remixer” that can be used to create short videos using a library of music tracks, spoken word, film, and photos supplied by renowned mixed media artists from Brazil, Honduras, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and other countries.

“The arts are one of the most powerful ways to build bridges among people from all over the world. MDGFive.com has great potential to reach, inform, and mobilize people to make a difference for women’s and children’s health,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “No woman should have to pay with her life for giving life. No child should have to die from a preventable disease. Investing in women and girls is one of the best investments we can make for this and future generations.”

"By working collaboratively with professional artists from around the world—who have tremendous influence in their respective societies and are eager to lend their voice—we feel MDGFive.com will engage a local-global dialogue in this new media environment," said cofounder Lisa Russell. The innovative project has caught the attention of leading international women’s health organizations such as EngenderHealth, UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund), Ipas, and Women Deliver, who are supporting MDGFive.com to further the reach of the initiative and spur more action on women’s health.

MDGFive.com co-founders will be involved in various high-profile events during the three-day MDG Summit at the UN. Lisa Russell will attend the TEDxChange event (co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and TED.com) as a special media guest, and Maya Azucena will perform at the Secretary General’s “Every Mother, Every Child” event, to kick off the Global Strategy on Women’s and Children’s Health.