The 2030 Sustainable Development Collective Fund: Reducing Maternal Mortality Rates in Nepal
The maternal mortality rate in low-income countries is currently much higher than it should be. Many women are needlessly dying in childbirth when there are preventable solutions that can be offered to these vulnerable women.
According to The World Health Organisation (WHO), the maternal mortality rate in low-income countries in 2020 was 430 per 100 000 live births. The maternal mortality rate in higher income countries was 12 per 100 000. Achieving a global maternal mortality rate below 70 by the year 2030 will require an annual rate of reduction of 11.6 % - a colossal undertaking.
Every day in 2020, almost 800 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Almost 95% of all maternal deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries.
There are various reasons as to why maternal mortality rates are higher in lower income countries. Common reasons include extreme poverty, lack of recourses, lack of reliable transportation, lack of infrastructure, conflict or an absence of adequate healthcare facilities.
What is certain, is that care by skilled health professionals before, during and after childbirth could save the lives of many more women and new-borns.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of seventeen interlinked objectives to achieve peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. They address the global challenges related to poverty, inequality, climate change, peace and justice.
The Sustainable Development Goal Target 3.1 aims to reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births. The majority of maternal deaths are preventable. However, a lack of adequate health care recourses has created a global endemic of high maternal mortality rates. It is not just during pregnancy that women need access to healthcare. Childbirth and the post-pregnancy period are also incredibly vulnerable times for mothers.
The World Health Organisation states that the most common cause of death in pregnancy and childbirth is severe bleeding after birth, which can kill a healthy woman in hours. The only way to cure postpartum haemorrhage is by injecting oxytocics straight after birth; without such treatment it is not likely that the mother will survive. Another killer is infection, which can happen easily after childbirth. If such infections were recognised and treated early, then many women’s untimely deaths could be prevented.
Progress toward The Goals is slow. Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has said that “unless we act now, the 2030 Agenda will become an epitaph for a world that might have been.”
The 2030 Sustainable Development Collective Fund supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The fund incubates under-funded, little-known, and unsupported grassroots sustainable development projects in the remote and low-income communities of the developing world. The focus is on generating socio-economic return in focus areas that directly impact the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The 2030 Sustainable Development Collective Fund supports sustainable projects which allows for substantial socio-economic returns on the long run; and was created in response to the rapidly changing world. The fund considers social, cultural, political, technological, and environmental factors in order to plan for the highest possible rate of long-term and sustainable success.
In order to help combat the high maternal mortality rate in the developing world, the 2030 Sustainable Development Collective Fund is planning to train and equip healthcare workers to operate a portable ultrasound machines.
Local health posts and medical centres in rural communities will be equipped with healthcare materials as part of a strategy to mobilise community maternal screening programs for the early detection of pregnancy related complications- and more timely referral.
This project is targeting the screening of 80,000 pregnant women each year in low income communities within the developing world, potentially saving countless lives by eradicating a proportion of preventable deaths stemming from pregnancy-related issues.
The 2030 Sustainable Development Collective Fund program consists of a 21-day training and development program for healthcare workers to learn how to operate a portable ultrasound machine; as well as equipping local health posts and medical centres with necessary portable ultrasound machines
A recent United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Report states “four years of progress in reducing poverty has been erased by Covid 19 and the recovery is slow and uneven. It is estimated that as many as 670 million people are living in extreme poverty worldwide”. With less than ten years left to achieve the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, now is the time to act to create tangible global change and socio-economic impact.