At the present rate of progress, the world will fall well short of the target for maternal mortality reduction.  The data suggest that to reach the target, the global MMR would have had to be reduced by an average 5.5 per cent a year between 1990 and 2015.

The current average rate of reduction is less than 1 per cent a year. The estimated 0.1 per cent annual rate of reduction in sub-Saharan Africa, where levels of mortality are highest, is slower than in any other region.