In West and Central Africa, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) figures are as sobering as they are compelling both in terms of share of global burden (nearly 40%) as well as risks of dying (highest in the world with an average of nearly 700 deaths per 100,000 live births. Moreover, profiling who is dying of maternal deaths, the majority in WCA are to adolescent girls (15-19), and young women poor, in rural areas and less educated, robbing them and their communities and nations, of their prospects of living productive lives. The quote from famous UK Professor Emeritus Mahmoud Fathallah "Women are not dying because of untreatable causes, they are dying because societies are yet to decide that their lives are worth saving" could not be more relevant today in West and Central Africa. 

Indeed whilst globally we know how to prevent these deaths — with political commitment, skilled midwives, and quality intrapartum care, in West and Central we must start by shielding the girl child and adolescent girls from child marriage that is one of the largest contributors to maternal mortality. WCA is home to seven of the ten countries with the highest rates of child marriage worldwide and with Central Sahel as the epicenter of this crisis which has the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world with 69 per cent of girls and young women married off before turning 18, and alarmingly, with no sign of progress in the last two decades. 

In this region we call for maternal mortality declaration as national emergency, with a societal and multisectoral response. Success in this region would mean resolving nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa’s maternal mortality crisis—bringing the aspiration to end preventable maternal deaths worldwide closer to reality. it is possible!