David Cameron calls on G8 to target maternal deaths

[Ed Barrow]

Source: The Guardian

Britain is to press its G8 partners to intensify efforts to lower the "shocking and shameful" levels of maternal mortality which have barely fallen in many developing countries over the past 20 years, David Cameron announces today.

In his first Guardian article since taking over as prime minister, Cameron calls for the G8/G20 summit in Toronto later this month to set "an ambitious target" of saving three million more lives by 2015.

As a sign of Britain's commitment to cutting maternal mortality, one of the eight millennium development goals (MDGs) set in 2000, a new £5m fund is to be established to help midwives and health workers in Britain share their skills with birth attendants, nurses and doctors in the world's poorest countries.

Cameron writes today: "In many of the poorest countries pregnancy is a life-threatening condition. By the end of today about 1,400 women will have died in pregnancy or childbirth, nearly all of them in the developing world. A decade ago, the world set a target of reducing maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. Yet once again, for all the talk of development goals, little has changed. Levels of maternal mortality in many regions have barely fallen in 20 years. That is shocking and shameful. But it doesn't have to continue like this."


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/03/david-cameron-g8-maternal-mortality