Goal 5 Improve maternal health Maternal deaths are more likely in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
5a
Maternal mortality ratio, modeled estimate (per 100,000 live births) 1,000 Sub-Saharan Africa 750 South Asia 500
250
Latin America & Caribbean
Middle East & North Africa East Asia & Pacific
0
Europe & Central Asia 1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Source: Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group and World Development Indicators database.
Progress toward reducing maternal mortality, 1990–2010
5b
Share of countries making progress toward reducing maternal mortality (%) 100
50
0
50
100
Reached target Insufficient data
On track
Off track
Seriously off track
East Asia & Pacific
Europe Latin Middle East & Central America & & North Asia Caribbean Africa Source: World Bank staff calculations.
South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
Reducing the risk to mothers
5c
Lifetime risk of maternal death (%) 6
4
2010
0
1990
2
Europe Latin Middle East South Sub-Saharan & Central America & & North Asia Africa Asia Caribbean Africa Source: Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group and World Development Indicators database.
10
World Development Indicators 2013
East Asia & Pacific
Front
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User guide
An estimated 287,000 maternal deaths occurred worldwide in 2010, all but 1,700 of them in developing countries. More than half of maternal deaths occur in Sub-S aharan Africa and a quarter in South Asia. And while the number of maternal deaths remains high, South Asia has made great progress in reducing them, reaching a maternal mortality ratio of 220 per 100,000 live births in 2010, down from 620 in 1990, a drop of 65 percent. The Middle East and North Africa and East Asia and Pacific have also reduced their maternal morality ratios more than 60 percent (figure 5a). These are impressive achievements, but progress in reducing maternal mortality has been slow, far slower than targeted by the Millennium Development Goals, which call for reducing the maternal mortality ratio by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015. But few countries and no developing region on average will achieve this target. Based on progress through 2010, 8 countries have achieved a 75 percent reduction, and 10 more are on track to reach the 2015 target (figure 5b). This is an improvement over the 2008 assessment, suggesting that progress is accelerating. Because of the reductions in Cambodia, China, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Vietnam, 74 percent of people in East Asia and Pacific live in a country that has reached the target (Vietnam) or is on track to do so by 2015. On average a third of people in low- and middleincome countries live in countries that have reached the target or are on track to do so. The maternal mortality ratio gives the risk of a maternal death at each birth, a risk compounded with each pregnancy. And because women in poor countries have more children under riskier conditions, their lifetime risk of maternal death may be 100 times greater than for women in highincome countries. Improved health care and lower fertility rates have reduced the lifetime risk in all regions, but women ages 15–49 in Sub-Saharan Africa still face a 2.5 percent chance of dying
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