During my visits to our partner countries as European Union development commissioner, I have met many women and mothers who show extraordinary strength and resilience every single day of their lives — earning a living for the family, making sure there is food on the table in the evening, protecting and raising their kids, sometimes in times of violent conflict or crisis.
Women play a crucial role in the development of our societies. It is even more frustrating then that we still have not managed to protect the health of mothers across the world at the time when they need it most.
Improving maternal health is among the most challenging of the Millennium Development Goals and overall progress on reducing maternal mortality is slow. Globally, the maternal mortality ratio dropped by 45 percent between 1990 and 2013, from 380 to 210 deaths per 100,000 live births, but this still means that in 2013 almost 300,000 women died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.
About the author
Andris Piebalgs
Andris Piebalgs is EU commissioner for development since 2010. A member of the Lead Group of the Scaling-Up Nutrition Movement, the U.N. High-Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All and the U.N. High-Level Panel on Post-2015, he was previously commissioner for energy and occupied several ministerial portfolios in Latvia.
