The State of Global Maternal and Child Health

In 2000, the Millennium Declaration set 15-year, worldwide goals for the reduction of child and maternal mortality. Thanks to rigorous evaluation efforts, the World Health Organization has endorsed a set of evidence-based interventions as worthy of implementation and scaling up to achieve these targets.

Impressively, since 1990, the annual number of deaths among children younger than 5 years has fallen by 48%, despite an increased number of births in many high-burden countries. However, according to recent assessments, among the 75 countries accounting for 98% of the world's maternal and childhood deaths, only 9 (by one estimate) are on track to achieve targeted reductions of 75% for maternal deaths and 66% for infant deaths by 2015.