United Nations Radio

Half a million women die in childbirth each year and more than a million babies die before they are a day old, due to lack of quality health care.

These statistics have remained unchanged for years and while there has been progress on almost all the other UN Millennium Development Goals, no progress had been made on the goal of reducing maternal mortality by 75% and achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015. Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries - half of them in Africa. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is part of a task force to improve maternal and newborn health care, says this greatest of tragedies demands the greatest of endeavour.

"We now know that ensuring sustainable long-term health provision will take more than funding for vaccines or treatments alone. So our next challenge must be to help developing countries improve their own health systems, to make sure they are able to recruit and train more than four million health workers whose skills will be desperately needed across the world."

The global campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals, supported by various UN agencies, the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, says 30 billion dollars need to be spent by the year 2015 to save the lives of three million mothers and seven million children.

Reporting for UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.

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