Improve Maternal Health (MDG 5)

Overview

MDG 5, to reduce maternal mortality by three quarters by 2015, has experienced the least progress. While a number of middle-income countries have made rapid progress in reducing maternal deaths, maternal mortality and morbidity still remains unacceptably high in the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.

Every year, more than 500,000 women die because of complications during pregnancy, childbirth, or in the six weeks after delivery. Most of these deaths (99 percent) occur in developing countries and most often could have been prevented.

Disparity and inequity in access to health services underlies this global trend. Half of all maternal deaths (265,000) occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and another third (187,000), in Southern Asia. Together, these two regions account for 85 percent of all maternal deaths. Large disparities also exist between women living in rural and urban areas, although the gap did narrow between 1990 and 2008.

The leading causes of maternal mortality in developing regions are haemorrhage and hypertension, which together account for half of all deaths in expectant or new mothers. The proportion of women in developing countries who received skilled assistance during delivery rose from 53 percent in 1990 to 63 percent in 2008. Progress was made in all regions but was especially dramatic in Northern Africa and South-Eastern Asia, with increases of 74 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

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Canada's Contribution

CIDA, through its Children and Youth Strategy and the path dedicated to child survival, including maternal health, supports improved maternal health by:

• Facilitating access to family planning, counselling, and commodities
• Supporting appropriate and timely antenatal, obstetric, and post-partum care for mothers and newborns
• Strengthening health systems as a whole to support the delivery of proven services at the community level

Canada has also committed $450 million over 1 years to address, through the Africa Health Systems Initiative, the critical shortage of human resources in the health field.

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Contributions from the Canadian International Development Agency and its Partners

Increased access to sexual and reproductive health services: CIDA's $2,590,146 contribution to the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) (2006-2012) is being used to improve care for safe motherhood, newborn health, and prevention of HIV/AIDS in four countries (Haiti, Burkina Faso, Uganda, and Guatemala). Working with local associations of obstetricians and gynaecologists, SOGC is working to reduce maternal and newborn deaths through training and other efforts to improve the quality of care provided.

In Afghanistan, CIDA is supporting UNICEF in a three-year project to extend health services to more than 156,000 children under the age of five, to more than 29,000 pregnant women living in the province of Kandahar, and to some 650,000 women of childbearing age in the wider southern region. CIDA's $10.2 million contribution to this project will also help to support emergency obstetric and maternal health training and provide equipment and supplies to Mirwais hospital and the maternal waiting home in Kandahar.

Stronger access to family planning: Canada has committed $115.8 million in core funding to the United Nations Population Fund over ten years (UNFPA) (2001-2011) to help ensure universal access to reproductive health, family planning, and sexual health. CIDA also supports the UNFPA in delivering reproductive health services and commodities in Bangladesh through the $20-million Demand-Based Reproductive Health Services project.

Access to skilled health care professionals during birth: In a small village in Bolivia, traditional midwives are playing an important role in providing a safe place to give birth, combining traditional health practices with modern medicine. CIDA funds this clinic through a partnership with the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation, a Canadian non-governmental organization.

CIDA is also supporting UNICEF in a large-scale program with the Bolivian to improve the health of women and children in three regions of Bolivia, where the infant mortality rate in the department of Oruro has dropped by an impressive 35 percent since 2004.

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