Maternal Mortality in 2005

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Improving maternal health and reducing maternal mortality have been key concerns of several international summits and conferences since the late 1980s, including the Millennium Summit in
2000. One of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted at the Millennium Summit is
improving maternal health (MDG5). Within the MDG monitoring framework, the international community
committed itself to reducing the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three quarters between 1990 and 2015.

These estimates provide an up-to-date indication of the extent of the maternal mortality problem globally. They strongly indicate a need for both improved action for maternal mortality reduction and increased efforts for the generation of robust data to provide better estimates in the future.