The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are seen as the means to ending poverty worldwide, but what is not widely understood is that without promoting women's reproductive rights and protecting maternal and child health, none of the eight MDGs are realistically attainable, according to advocates at Women Deliver: Delivering Solutions for Girls and Women.

Reducing poverty, reducing child mortality, stopping HIV and AIDS, providing education, promoting gender equality, ensuring adequate food, and promoting a healthy environment are all interconnected to the improvement of maternal health. Unfortunately,UNFPA indicates that of all the MDGs, MDG 5 has made the least progress and is the most underfunded of the health-related MDGs.

"It is not that the world doesn't know how to save the 350,000 mothers and 3 million newborns who die every year," Melinda Gates said Monday at the conference, adding, "It is that we haven't tried hard enough." Gates announced that the Gates Foundation is committing $1.5 billion in new grant money for maternal health – the second largest donation in the foundation's history.

In order to meet the targets established over a decade ago and significantly improve maternal, newborn, and reproductive health, access to family planning, quality care for pregnancy and childbirth, and other health-related services need to be increased.

“The more we empower women's reproductive health” in low- and middle-income countries, the “better equipped those women will be to empower other aspects of their lives,” actress and humanitarian Ashley Judd said Monday on a Women Deliver panel focusing on the empowerment of women. She added that “we need to create a counter-continuum to empower women” to break down the barriers that inhibit women's choices and their health.

Investing more in women also produces “far-reaching economic and social benefits,” according to the Women Deliver action plan. “The world loses $15 billion every year in productivity because of maternal and newborn mortality. Targeted investments in maternal, newborn, and reproductive health will have a dramatic, lasting impact on the economic and social fabric of developing nations.”

To revamp efforts to achieve the MDGs, the Women Deliver Action Plan suggests governments and the international community to commit to increasing investment in maternal, newborn, and reproductive health; strengthen health systems; strengthen maternal, newborn, and reproductive health programs and institutions; and develop monitoring and accountability mechanisms to address “wider socio-economic, political, and cultural barriers to maternal and newborn health care, and help improve policies and programs.”

"This is a pivotal moment,” Gates said, “but we must work together to make this happen.”

Chris Rottler, Senior Communication Manager

Stay tuned! K4Health will be providing live coverage throughout the conference.