Launch on Maternal Mortality and Safe Motherhood on Feb. 20
WHAT: Announcement of a new strategy on maternal mortality and safe motherhood in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is called: Reduction of Maternal Mortality and Morbidity: Interagency Strategic Consensus for Latin America and the Caribbean.
WHO: Officials of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and seven other groups and agencies that form the Regional Interagency Coordinating Committee will be present at the launch ceremony. The members are PAHO, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF, the Population Council, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 20, 2004, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
WHERE: PAHO headquarters at 525 23rd Street, NW, in Washington, D.C. (Room B)
WHY: Nearly all of the 23,000 deaths of women in Latin America and the Caribbean each year from pregnancy and childbirth complications can be prevented, according to a new strategy. The strategy calls on governments and civil society to prioritize maternal health and offers concrete recommendations for making the right to safe motherhood a reality for women throughout the LAC region. Maternal mortality is a significant obstacle to development and in 2000, all member countries of the United Nations pledged to decrease maternal deaths worldwide by 75 percent by 2015 and address other development challenges through the Millennium Development Goals.
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