International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

FIGO Maternal and Newborn Health Initiative (MNH) 

Project Team: 

Project Director - Professor David Taylor; Project Manager - Dr Patrick Delorme; Project Administrator - Dorota Wasowska

Funding secured: 10.5million US dolllars

From: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org)

Launched: November 2008

Length of project: Five years 

Background: Maternal and newborn health constitutes a major international health and development issue in low-resource countries. Concerned that Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5), to improve maternal health, has not made significant progress, FIGO’s initiative - ‘Improving maternal and newborn health in low-resource countries through strengthening the role of obstetric and gynecological national associations’ - will work towards the goal of reducing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity.  

Aim of project: To improve the lives and health of women and newborns in the world’s most under-served regions.  The project will focus on 15 FIGO member associations in low- and middle-resource countries in Asia and Africa. Over five years, FIGO hopes to enable these member associations to play a catalytic role in making positive changes in policy and practice and improve maternal and newborn health services for under-served populations. While the importance of national health professional organisations in tackling maternal mortality in low-resource countries has been noted, it could be argued that insufficient consideration has been given to the readiness and capacity of these organisations to take on this role. This project will help address this, allowing FIGO and its member associations to work more effectively towards saving the lives of mothers and newborns.

Countries involved: The five-year initiative has begun with a phase of development in eight African and Asian countries  - Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, India and Nepal - and will be extended to a further seven countries in a phase of South-to-South collaboration.