ICM President Bridget Lynch sends 'greetings to the midwives of the world'.

As 2009 begins, this message will consider the MDG goals 4 and 5 and the work the ICM is doing to achieve them. I am reviewing our commitments, but also outlining the global initiatives which the ICM is supporting, to give you an overview of that work and to encourage midwifery associations and individual midwives to become involved to help achieve these goals.

MDGs 4 & 5: six years to the Countdown 2015--The ICM is committed to work with our global partners to achieve MDG 4 and 5 by 2015. The World Health Report 2005 Making Every Mother and Child Count identified midwives as the essential human resource to reach MDGs 4 and 5. In 2008 the WHO concluded that the world needs 700,000 more midwives to reach those goals. We are doing our part by developing the three pillars of a strong international profession: global midwifery standards in education, global standards of regulation and strong member associations. And we are updating our 2002 Essential Competencies to keep up with maternal and newborn health needs. Each of our member associations will have these standards and new competencies as benchmarks to strengthen midwifery in all our countries. These tools will also serve to ensure our profession is more unified at practice levels globally. However, it is one thing to strengthen midwifery at the global level; and another for all of us to be active in the global campaigns to achieve the targets of MDG 5: Reduce maternal mortality; Provide universal access to reproductive health care.

Safe Motherhood and Midwives--More women are dying in pregnancy and childbirth in Sub-Saharan Africa today than 21 years ago when the Safe Motherhood initiative began. As was stated in September at the annual UN Assembly, MDG 5 is the only one of the 8 MDGs with no significant gains in achieving its targets. Twenty years later more than 500,000 women a year are still dying because they are pregnant. A further 9 million suffer complications that can result in life long pain, disability and social exclusion. Three million newborns die during the first week of life and another 3 million are stillborn: 20,000 deaths a day related to pregnancy and childbirth. Lack of political will from all our governments was cited as the primary reason for this poor progress. Globally, in not just the poor, but also in rich nations, the vast majority of governments don't care that the poorest and most isolated women and their newborns continue to die or suffer unnecessary morbidity and neglect in childbirth. But it is not only governments that are to blame. The disappointing reality is, civil society in the vast majority of our countries has not made maternal, newborn and child health a priority either at the national level, let alone at the international level.

White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA)--the WRA is working hard to strategically address this issue and is advocating through their 'Promises to Mothers Lost' campaign to reduce maternal mortality. Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is the Patron of the WRA, and she gave an inspiring keynote address at the ICM Congress in Glasgow where 2000 midwives signed a petition asking the G8 to put maternal mortality as a priority on their agenda. The ICM is a global partner with the WRA and supports this important advocacy campaign. We are forwarding information and updates to all of our Member Associations, so that the information is passed on to individual midwife members. In support of 'Promises to Mothers Lost' the ICM will be working with our Member Associations in the months ahead to encourage alliances with the WRA at country level. The ICM will be able to share strategies, stories and achievements of these efforts on our website.

Maternal Mortality Campaign--Sarah Brown has also convened an international alliance of celebrities, wives of heads of states and others to rally international support to encourage ...