As America ushers in a new administration, the developing world, including Africa, is keen to know what improvements will trickle down from the world’s super-power. For the women of Malawi, a poor southern African country where up to 45 percent of the country’s 13.1 million people lives below the poverty line of $1 a day, their very lives depend on it.

Malawi has one of the worst indicators when it comes to women’s health. The country’s maternal mortality is among the worst in the world - up to 807 women die per every 100,000 live births. Pregnancy in this country is locally referred to as pakati, which literally means “between life and death.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been trying to improve the desperate health situation facing Malawi’s women. The UN agency is, among other things, supporting the country’s ministry of health in reducing maternal mortality.

UNFPA Malawi has also championed the empowerment of communities in reproductive health in a few target districts. Through this approach, community leaders, village health committees and community distribution agents of contraceptives are fully involved and trained to enable their own community members to participate and make informed choices in reproductive health issues. This approach has helped local communities to identify existing harmful reproductive health practices and come up with their own initiatives.

UNFPA Malawi helped create the Safe Motherhood Task Force which is in charge of following up on pregnancy outcomes, has increased male participation in reproductive health and increased the number of reproductive health services accessed by families. The UN agency has also led the fight against Obstetric Fistula as well as procured condoms, both male and female for the national Reproductive Health program.

These successes are but isolated cases in a country where only one doctor looks after 54,000 people. The unmet need for contraceptives in Malawi is 28 percent, indicating that a large number of pregnancies are unplanned. Thirty percent of these pregnancies are teen pregnancies. Every day, 16 women die in childbirth amounting to 6,000 maternal deaths every year. All these negative consequences, faced by women and girls, can be prevented by empowering them to access their reproductive health rights.

In Malawi, the wellbeing of a woman benefits not only her family but her entire community. If a woman is ill or dies, there are wide-spread costs to her society which include mounting poverty levels.

The time has come to hasten the provision of resources to ensure that health services reach the women that need them most – the women of Malawi are just a fraction of those in need in the developing world. Vital services such as skilled attendance at birth, emergency obstetric care, family planning are needed immediately. Women’s health should be a global priority for the world’s leaders if the Millennium Development Goals are to become a reality.

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In response to the Community Chat, "American Foreign Policy and Women's Global Health" hosted by The WIP and Americans for the UNFPA, Pilirani Semu-Banda offers her concerns in this essay and will participate in the conversation.

To participate in this Community Chat, you must be logged into your account. If you haven't already created an account, be sure to do so before joining the conversation. This Community Chat is scheduled for Monday, December 8th, 10am-12pm PST. To join the conversation on Monday, visit our homepage to link to the chat.

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