A number of middle-income countries have made rapid progress in reducing maternal deaths. Nevertheless, maternal mortality levels remain unacceptably high across the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. Each year, more than 500,000 women die from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth. In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman’s risk of dying from such complications over the course of her lifetime is 1 in 16, compared to 1 in 3,800 in the developed world.