Achieving the ambitious maternal mortality reduction aims of the Millennium Development Goals will require more than generating sufficient donor support and carrying out appropriate medical interventions. It also will necessitate convincing governments in developing countries to give the cause political priority. The generation of political priority, however, is a subject that has received mini...

I conducted case studies on the level of political priority given to maternal mortality reduction in 5 countries: Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Among the factors that shaped political priority were international agency efforts to establish a global norm about the unacceptability of maternal death; those agencies' provision of financial and technical resources; the degree o...

In 1987 a conference on safe motherhood in Nairobi, Kenya, drew international attention to alarmingly high levels of maternal death in childbirth in developing countries. Global levels are estimated to be between 500,000 and 600,000 per year, with approximately one-tenth of these deaths occurring in Nigeria alone. The conference ended with a call for a reduction in maternal mortality by half by...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the social and political factors that influence priority setting for different health services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet these factors are integral to understanding how national health agendas are established. We investigated factors that facilitate or prevent surgical care from being prioritized in LMICs. METHODS AND FINDINGS We underto...

Why do some global health initiatives receive priority from international and national political leaders whereas others receive little attention? To analyse this question we propose a framework consisting of four categories: the strength of the actors involved in the initiative, the power of the ideas they use to portray the issue, the nature of the political contexts in which they operate, and...