MALAWI'S EXAMPLE
The White Ribbon Alliance - an international organisation to promote safe motherhood with members in 91 countries - says African women have a 1 in 16 chance of dying from a pregnancy, compared with 1 in 1,400 in Europe.
"These are needless and preventable deaths. This is not a strange illness that requires science to find a cure. We know what to do but the political will to put resources into this and to prioritise it is missing," said Brigid McConville, the director of White Ribbon Alliance in London.
Armah agrees on the need for investment.
"There needs to be a massive injection of funds into the training of skilled birth attendants and we need the infrastructure," she said. UNFPA is working with the Juba hospital to open a blood bank and mini-lab.
UNFPA also plans to inform women about pregnancy care.
"People don't know that women have a right to reproductive healthcare," Armah said.
Thousands of miles to the south of Sudan, in the sliver-like country of Malawi, the importance of grassroots education to fight maternal mortality has been recognised.
UNFPA says that nearly 2 per cent of live births in Malawi result in the death of the mother: that's 16 deaths a day from pregnancy or childbirth complications.
But a community in Dedza district, just outside the capital Lilongwe, is trying to change that.
In under two years, Chitowo community, working with UNFPA, has reduced maternal deaths to seven from 33.
"This has been possible because as a village we formed committees to encourage pregnant mothers to go for antenatal (care), monitor newborns, distribute bed nets and set up rules to follow on hygiene," said village chief Adamson Mwangwazu.
"We also fine those who deliver at home instead of in a health centre...We no longer lose a child or a mother like we used to."
