UNFPA

The workshop aimed to contribute to the agenda, and respond to the global focus on human resources for health–the theme of this year’s World Health Report. At the workshop, the first of its kind for UNFPA, midwives from developing and industrialized countries, and midwifery advisors working at the international level, discussed with UNFPA staff and UNFPA partners the major barriers to the development of midwifery skills and proposed solutions.

This business plan for the Maternal Health Thematic Fund outlines its goals, guiding principles, results framework, management, governance and monitoring and evaluation processes for the period 2008-2011.

How do we improve the lives of the nearly 3 billion individuals living on less than two dollars a day? How can we enable all individuals — male and female, young and old — to protect themselves from HIV? To save the lives of more than 500,000 women who die each year in childbirth? What will it take to show young people living in poverty that they have a stake in development and a hope for the future? For perhaps the first time in history, questions such as these are not simply rhetorical. They have answers: answers that go to the very heart of what it means to be a woman or a man, wealthy or poor.

This is a report on a conference held to introduce UNFPA's fistula campaign in South Asia to review current knowledge about obstetric fistula in the region and to discuss steps for moving forward with the campaign in the region.

UNFPA leads a coalition of organizations committed to the prevention and treatment of fistula, an isolating disability that results from unrelieved obstructed labor. This report, from the second meeting of the working group, documents the considerable progress that has been made in bringing fistula to wider attention, in collecting data about it, and in developing strategies to end fistula in the developing world, just as it has been virtually eliminated in industrialized countries.

More than half a million women die each year as a result of pregnancy-related complications. This brochure describes UNFPA's three-part strategy to prevent this tragic loss and some of the progress that is occurring in countries around the world. Improving maternal health is one of the eight internationally agreed on Millennium Development Goals and a top priority for UNFPA.

This report reviews the first meeting of international fistula experts in London in July 2001, which launched this initiative and focused on concrete actions to alleviate the suffering of affected women.

This is a report on a meeting that occurred in Ghana regarding fistula and the actions that are taken to eradicate it.

This publication highlights the importance of the ICPD Programme of Action, the “Cairo+5” discussions and subsequent experience and agreements as we mobilize to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

UNFPA partnered with EngenderHealth to conduct the first study on the occurrence of fistula in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Benin, Chad, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia). The report offers a glimpse of the issue as seen through the eyes of clients who seek services and professional health workers in 35 hospitals where fistula is treated. It highlights the urgent need for equipment, skilled medical staff and surgical supplies in order to meet the high demand for care.

The Emergency Obstetric Care Handbook is the revised version of the former "Guidelines for assessing the availability, use and quality of obstetric services published jointly in 1997 by UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO and AMDD (the Averting Maternal Death and Disability programme of Columbia University). Access to emergency obstetric care (EmOC) for all pregnant women with complications is one of the 3 pillars of the reduction of maternal mortality, the fifth MDG. Kindly note that the preliminary French version of the Handbook is also linked here, and a final version will be posted as soon as available.

This report documents experiences and lessons related to training and scaling-up the midwifery workforce. These lessons were shared at the First International Forum on Midwifery in the Community (Tunisia, 2006).

The document consists of two parts: Part One, Investing in MOMS focuses on midwives and others with midwifery skills: who they are, what they do and how to scale up professional attendance at all births. This section draws largely from the discussions and recommendations of two international meetings held in 2006, in partnership with ICM and WHO: the New York Workshop on Midwives in March and the Hammamet Forum on Midwifery in the Community in December. Part Two, Voices from the Field, is a review, and evaluations where available, of UNFPA initiatives related to midwives and midwifery in all four regions.

This second edition of the UNFPA Maternal Mortality Update focuses on Emergency Obstetric Care, an intervention that is fundamental to reducing maternal mortality worldwide. The momentum for addressing maternal mortality has been strengthened by numerous international resolutions—most recently the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. The Millennium Declaration calls for a 75 per cent reduction of 1990 maternal mortality rates by 2015. This report analyses the issue and shares tools and experiences to meet this challenge.

This document reports the global, regional, and country estimates of maternal mortality in 2005, and the findings of the separate assessments of trends of maternal mortality levels since 1990. It summarizes the challenges involved in measuring maternal mortality and the main approaches to measurement, and explains the development of the 2005 maternal mortality estimates and the interpretation of the results. The final section discusses the use and limitations of the estimates, with an emphasis on the importance of improved data quality for maternal mortality estimation. The appendices present data tables of country estimates according to data source and different regional groupings for WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank.

The document opens by summarizing the complexity involved in measuring maternal mortality and the reasons why such measurement is subject to uncertainty, particularly when it comes to monitoring progress. Subsequently, the rationale for the development of 1995 estimates of maternal mortality is presented along with a description of the process through which this was accomplished. This is followed by an analysis and interpretation of the results, comparing them to the 1990 estimates developed by WHO and UNICEF and describing some of the difficulties that such comparisons involve. The final parts of the document present a review of progress in maternal mortality reduction accomplished over the past few years followed by a summary of the kind of information needed to build a fuller understanding of both the levels and trends in maternal mortality and the interventions needed to achieve sustained reductions in the coming few years.

The Maternal Heath Thematic Fund Annual Report 2008 analyzes the needs of priority countries for improved delivery outcomes and outlines the strategy for moving forward. It includes summaries of needs assessments from 11 countries selected for support, including: Bénin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Madagascar, Malawi and Sudan. Both fertility and maternal mortality are very high in all of these countries. The Maternal Health Thematic Fund was launched by UNFPA in 2008 to help key countries improve maternal and newborn health by identifying and addressing obstacles to progress in national systems. The fund supports approaches that are country-owned and country-driven.

This publication gives an overview of the situation of maternal and newborn health in the East and South East Asia region, with a focus on progress and the interventions needed to save women's and newborn's lives. There is now a clear evidence base of the priority interventions in maternal and newborn health which need to be in place to avert maternal and neonatal mortality in countries with limited resources.

Investing in Midwives and Others with Midwifery Skills to Save the Lives of Mothers and Newborns and Improve Their Health: Policy and Programme Guidance for Countries Seeking to Scale Up Midwifery Services, Especially at the Community Level