The issue: entirely avoidable deaths
Globally, 215 million women who want to delay or avoid pregnancy are not able to use an effective method of family planning.
Each year there are 75 million unintended pregnancies and 22 million girls and women have unsafe abortions.
Most deaths in pregnancy or childbirth in developing countries are entirely avoidable, yet more than a third of a million women and girls die every year.
And for every woman who dies, up to 30 more suffer a debilitating illness or permanent disability.
In fact, Millennium Development Goal 5, to improve maternal health, is one of the most off-track.
Prospects for newborn babies in developing countries are equally grim. Around 3.6 million babies die every year before they are a month old accounting for 40% of all deaths in children under five years of age.
This is why improving reproductive, maternal and newborn health in the developing world is a major priority for the UK Government.
Our vision: choice for women
Our vision is a developing world where all women are able to exercise choice over the size and timing of their families, where no woman dies giving birth and where all newborns survive and thrive.
Investment in reproductive, maternal and newborn health saves lives and is highly cost effective. Simply meeting the unmet need for family planning alone could prevent around a third of maternal deaths and a fifth of newborn deaths.
We believe we should empower girls and women to choose whether, when and how many children to have. We should ensure pregnancy and child birth are safe.
These actions have a much wider positive impact on families, economies and societies, as well as the health and status of women themselves.
This places women and girls at the heart of the UK’s development assistance.
We have two strategic priorities:
- prevent unintended pregnancies by enabling women and girls to choose whether, when and how many children they have
- ensure pregnancy and child birth are safe for mothers and babies.
In December 2010, we produced our framework for results which outlines how we will double our efforts to 2015:
Choices for women: Planned pregnancies, safe births and healthy newborns
This framework outlines why prioritising reproductive, maternal and newborn health is important, why it is excellent value for money, and how we will achieve our commitments.
It also sets out how we will work with with other international and UK organisations in partner countries to achieve greater results.
Our commitment
We will double our efforts for women’s and newborn health to:
- save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies by 2015
- enable at least 10 million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015, contributing to a wider global goal of 100 million, including 1 million young women
- prevent more than 5 million unintended pregnancies
- support at least 2 million safe deliveries, ensuring long lasting improvements to maternity services, particularly for the poorest 40%.
Our four pillars for action
We will do more of what we know works, focusing on value for money, but we will also innovate, evaluate and continue to learn. Our framework for results sets out four pillars for action:
Pillar 1: Empower women and girls to make healthy reproductive choices and act on them
Pillar 2: Remove barriers that prevent access to quality services, particularly for the poorest and most at risk
Pillar 3: Expand the supply of quality services, delivering cost effective interventions for family planning, safe abortion, antenatal care, safe delivery and emergency obstetric care, postnatal and newborn care - through stronger health systems with public and private providers
Pillar 4: Enhance accountability for results at all levels with increased transparency.
Evidence
The reproductive, maternal and newborn evidence series provides an overview of relevant current evidence concentrating on those areas where policy or practical decisions will have to be made.
The series is primarily aimed at informing the design and implementation of the UK Government’s framework for results.
It concentrates on regions where DFID has a major presence (primarily Africa and South Asia) and on areas with direct links to policy and practice decisions.
Read more about the reproductive, maternal and newborn evidence series