Safe Motherhood Initiative

A global partnership launched in 1987 at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, sponsored by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund and other partners, aimed at reducing maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide. It raised international attention and funding for access to skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric care and family planning, and helped establish maternal mortality as a distinct global health priority rather than a byproduct of general health system weakness. The initiative's original goal of halving maternal deaths by 2000 was missed by a wide margin, but the sustained attention it generated fed into later frameworks, including the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals; global maternal deaths fell by roughly 38 percent between 2000 and 2017.