Learn more about reproductive health in Europe here.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of goals set out in 2015 in order to achieve a new sustainable development agenda for the world by 2030. Out of the 17 development goals, number 3 is the goal directly linked to health. Within goal number 3, target 3.1 aims to decrease the global maternal mortality rate to less than 70 per 100 000 live births by 2030.

In May 2016, the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) took place in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHA, which is the highest decision-making organ within the WHO, accepted a resolution related to women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health. The resolution strives to ensure that every woman, child and adolescent worldwide are able to survive and thrive by the year of 2030, and is directly aligned with the SDGs and goal number 3.

WHO/Europe develops strategies and tools to help policy-makers and leading experts to adapt and apply the Making Pregnancy Safer framework to different country contexts. For policy-makers, it has provided:

• the European strategic approach for making pregnancy safer;
• a tool to assess the health system’s performance in improving maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health;
• a tool to assess the quality of hospital care for mothers and newborn babies;
• a training package on effective perinatal care.
• a set of guidelines for the integrated management of pregnancy and childbirth.

WHO/Europe draws on these to build capacity in Member States.