By Morenike Taire
In September 2010, at a UN General Assembly summit to assess progress on the MGDs, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon launched the Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health, a plan to save 16 million women and children by 2015.

This was followed by the establishment of a Commission on Information and Accountability for Women and Children’s Health, charged with developing an accountability framework to monitor and track commitments made to the global strategy.

After the study of the commission, it identified the following core indicators to use as benchmarks: Maternal mortality ratios, under 5 mortality with the proportion of newborn deaths, Children under 5 who are stunted, demand for family planning satisfied, antenatal coverage, anti retroviral prophylaxis amongst HIV positive mothers and therapy for women who are treatment eligible, skilled attendant at birth, post natal care for mothers and babies within two days of birth, exclusive breastfeeding, three doses of DTP3 immunization coverage and antibiotic treatment for pneumonia.

40%
Thirty five countdown countries experienced a decline of forty percent or more in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2008

60%
Although maternal mortality has dropped in the majority of countdown countries, sixty percent still has very high or high mortality rates

6
Six countries are now on track to achieve MGD5

½
About five of all under-5 deaths occur in only five countdown countries: Nigeria, India, China, Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan

4
Number of countdown countries with data on postnatal care for newborns within two days of birth