Last week, I wrote a post suggesting that the lives of mothers and babies in Afghanistan are showing signs of improvement. That was prior to the launch of the second State of the World’s Midwifery (SoWMy) report at the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) 30th Triennial Congress. The report, coordinated by UNFPA, ICM and WHO but involving stakeholders from around the world, is a response to Millennium Development Goal 5 and provides an evidence base for the state of midwifery in 73 low- and middle-income countries.

c/o UNFPA

Included in the report is a two-page country profile for each of the 73 ‘Countdown to 2015’ countries included in the report. The country profiles are data rich – the first half deals with ‘where are we now?’ and the second half looks at ‘what might 2030 look like?’.

Based on the available data, the report shows that:-

• the maternal and newborn…