Background of High-Level Meeting

Each year more than half a million women die from pregnancy-related causes and 10.6 million children die of which almost 40% are newborns. Almost all of these deaths are in developing countries and many could be prevented with existing, cost-effective, evidence-based interventions, if only these interventions were more widely available. Maternal, newborn and child health receives little funding in comparison to the number of deaths and the associated burden of disability. In 2000, Heads of State and agencies committed to addressing these problems by adopting the Millennium Declaration. Millennium Development Goals four and five[1] focus new attention and energy around the problems of maternal newborn and child health and are reinforced by the other goals. In addition new partnerships are providing a previously unseen opportunity to work together to engender more support and co-ordinated action.

2005 is a very important year for maternal, newborn and child health for many reasons including:

The interim reports on progress to the Millennium Development Goals will be published mid 2005, prior to the UN Secretary General's report on the five-year achievements on the MDGs
The topic of World Health Day, April 7th 2005, will be Maternal and Child Health. The 2005 World Health Report on Maternal and Child Health will be launched on World Health Day. A Lancet series of articles on Newborn Health will be published following on the previous series on Child Survival

Together with the Government of India, the Partnership for Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health, the Healthy Newborn Partnership and the Child Survival Partnership, convened a High-Level Meeting in order to mobilize new commitment matched with action for improving maternal, newborn and child health among countries, international agencies, development partners and other stakeholders. This meeting was hosted by the Government of India in New Delhi, on 7, 8 and 9 April 2005, in conjunction with the launch of World Health Report 2005.