Safe motherhood and newborn health: FIGO initiatives 2006–2010

Through international partnerships, FIGO has been delivering safe motherhood and newborn health (SMNH) projects in a number of low-income countries. The projects aim to achieve the objectives set out in the ICPD Programme of Action and the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, which are related to child survival and maternal mortality. Each project is developed in response to the needs of the intervention region and can be organized around the following themes: provision of maternal and newborn health care services to underserved and hard-to-reach areas; improvement and provision of quality basic emergency obstetric care; establishment of functional clinical and perinatal audits; development of new maternal and newborn health care protocols; community education and sensitization to women's rights in sexual and reproductive health; and reducing the risk of unsafe abortion.