Women wait outside the busy maternity wing of the Gisenyi District Hospital lab, Rwanda, on August 20, 2019. In 2000, as part of the Millennium Development Goals, countries around the world committed to reducing their maternal mortality rates by at least 75 per cent by 2015. Rwanda is one of only nine countries to have achieved this goal.

RwandaÕs health gains in the last decade are among the worldÕs most dramatic. Health insurance Ñ called Mutuelle de SantŽ Ñ is nearly universal, life expectancy rose from 29 to 68 years between 1994 and 2015, and mortality during childbirth fell by 70% over the same period. (Photo by Nichole Sobecki/VII for The Global Fund)