State of the World’s Mothers Report

Save the Children just released their 2013 State of the World’s Mothers Report (check it out here). There is a ton of interesting information included, and you should definitely look at the entire report.

How did Bolivia Measure Up?

In many other reports on health indicators, Bolivia tends to rank near the bottom for the Western Hemisphere alongside Haiti.

Overall, Bolivia fares better in this report, ranking 93rd out of 176 countries for the best and worst places to be a mother, beating out many other Western Hemisphere countries such as Honduras (111), Guatemala (128), and Haiti (164).

However, Bolivia was singled out as having one of the worst disparities between rich and poor; “babies born to the poorest 20 percent of mothers die at nearly three times the rate of babies born to the richest 20 percent of mothers” (p. 19).

The bottom 20 percent have a 194% elevated risk of death:

The Importance of Mano a Mano’s Health Programs

It is in these poor, rural areas of Bolivia that fared so badly in the Save the Children report where Mano a Mano focuses its healthcare programs. Through our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Bolivia, Mano a Mano has built 139 community health clinics to date, and their primary focus is on providing basic care and improving infant and maternal health. We are able to significantly reduce the infant and maternal mortality rates in our clinics compared to the rural average through our comprehensive model that ensures clinics are equipped, have adequate staffing, and are well-trained in order to provide quality care to Bolivians that use our clinics.

This State of the World’s Mothers Report confirms how much work there still is to do in Bolivia, especially for the poorest communities. Right now there are 143 communities on Mano a Mano’s waiting list to build a clinic, and we continue to construct 8-12 new clinics each year (we built 9 new clinics in 2012).

Our ability to build new projects is only limited by our funding.