A Global Push to Eliminate Maternal Mortality: Focusing on Zero Deaths
The world faces a critical challenge: preventing maternal deaths. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3 aims to reduce this rate to less than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. Sadly, current projections show we are falling drastically short, forecasting over a million preventable maternal deaths – a tragic loss of life with ripple effects across families and communities.
Addressing this crisis is complex. Multiple causes at various stages of pregnancy make targeted interventions difficult to develop and assess. The relatively smaller number of maternal deaths, compared to other global health issues, also affects funding allocation.
"The loss of a mother can devastate her family, starting with the other children she may already have." This stark reality underscores the profound impact of maternal mortality. Not only is the immediate family deeply affected, but the loss reverberates through extended families and communities. The mother’s economic contributions often vanish, impacting everyone who relies on her.
Studies reveal that children with surviving mothers have better chances of reaching age 10 and staying in school, highlighting the long-term benefits of safeguarding maternal health.
Recognizing the urgent need for action, global leaders are forging innovative approaches. A recent initiative, “Room 17”, part of the 17 Rooms Initiative focused on revitalizing partnerships for the SDGs, brought together leading experts in maternal health to explore the power of "impact hubs.”
These hubs act as central nodes, connecting governments, non-government organizations, and healthcare practitioners to focus on a singular, measurable goal: zero maternal deaths by 2030. Instead of counting deaths, this approach celebrates life with a "death-free days" metric, already successfully piloted in Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.
An impact hub can coordinate efforts across multiple partners and donors using a pay-for-performance scheme tied to this metric.
It can also provide vital resources like capacity building programs and training on proven interventions.
For example, digital cash transfers can help overcome financial barriers to prenatal and delivery care in countries with economic hardships. Capacity building can equip healthcare professionals with the tools to effectively identify and manage high-risk pregnancies.
Importantly, the impact hub would not impose a one-size-fits-all solution. Strategies should be tailored to local contexts: fragile political and economic environments, varying healthcare system resilience, and culturally specific needs.
This global network of national and local impact hubs, united by a shared commitment to zero maternal deaths, would offer a powerful framework for collaboration. It would ease the tension between promoting community autonomy while ensuring global connectivity for knowledge sharing and resource allocation.
Beyond scaling existing solutions, these hubs can foster bottom-up innovation and investment in new approaches. Video game environments could be used for medical training, for instance.
Potential challenges require careful consideration, such as a possible "brain drain" of skilled healthcare professionals from poorer to wealthier areas and integrating digital cash transfers into existing health system infrastructure.
This ambitious initiative has the potential to create a truly global partnership, uniting local providers, national health systems, and international organizations in a shared mission to eliminate maternal mortality. By connecting grassroots efforts with targeted support and measurable milestones, we can finally celebrate the joy of new life without the shadow of preventable death.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of the New America think tank and former director of policy planning in the US State Department, expressed hope for this initiative:
"Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics (Princeton University Press, 2021)"
