Taking the Lead in Women's Health

The Prevention of Maternal Mortality Network was a decade-long effort launched by Carnegie Corporation in 1987. Corporation funding supported research teams in sub-Saharan Africa committed to undertaking various aspects of maternal health in the context of primary health care, incorporating family planning, child care and other basic health services. Not only was the program one of the largest private sources of funding aimed at improving the health of African women during pregnancy and childbirth, it led to the creation of the Regional Prevention of Maternal Mortality Network, an entirely African entity. In addition, the Corporation’s work helped bring the problem of maternal deaths in Africa to the attention of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which, in 1999, founded the Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program, an initiative that has brought maternal health services to women in more than 50 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia.