Women dying during pregnancy is an often avoidable tragedy, yet maternal mortality rates are stagnating or increasing all around the world. Elevating women into leadership positions with influence over policy funding, design, and implementation can stop more mothers from dying, leading to healthier, happier families, and societies.
Approximately 800 women died every day during or following pregnancy in 2020. The issue is most acute for women of color.
Over 70% of these women lost their lives in sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States, where maternal deaths have risen by 40 percent between 2020 to 2021, Black women die from pregnancy-related causes at three times the rate of white women. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated underlying social and political drivers like structural racism, implicit bias, and poverty that limit access to quality health care.
About the authors
Amie Batson
Amie Batson is president of WomenLift Health, an organization committed to expanding the power and influence of talented women in global health. She has a 30-year career in global health that includes positions with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, USAID, and PATH.
Winnie Byanyima
Winnie Byanyima is the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. A grass-roots activist, human rights advocate, and world-recognized expert on women’s rights, she began her career as an engineer in her native Uganda. Appointed to the diplomatic service in 1989, she represented Uganda in France and at UNESCO. She was a member of parliament for 10 years in Uganda, and thereafter served at the African Union Commission. She was UNDP’s director of gender and development between 2006 and 2013.
