Minister, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting me to be here today, and thank you all for coming together to talk about one of the world's most pressing global health challenges: maternal mortality. 

I am looking very much forward to hearing the distinguished members of today's panel discuss how to achieve real and sustainable change on this issue. 

As the blessed mother of four healthy children, I know how fortunate I am to have gone through my pregnancies with full access to information, quality health care and skilled birth attendance.

But I am also painfully aware of the contrasting situation in other parts of the world. The fact is that when this day is over, 800 women will have died because of pregnancy or childbirth related complications. That is, every two minutes somewhere in the world a woman dies giving birth. 

99 % of these women live in developing countries. Maternal mortality is a cruel manifestation of how poverty gaps and gender inequality puts women and their babies lives in the gravest of danger. 

Giving life is something we rightfully view as nature’s own course but, in fact it is complicated. A minimum of 10% of all births worldwide require some form of intervention. So, it is frightening to know that 40 million women each year give birth without skilled birth attendance and 2 million give birth all alone.

These figures illustrate a true tragedy, as the vast majority of these maternal deaths are avoidable. With the right skills at hand, birth complications such as postpartum hemorrhage or preeclampsia do not need to be death sentences. 

When a mother dies, it affects her family, community and society-at-large. Motherless children are up to 10 times more likely to die within two years of their mothers' death. They have an increased risk of bad health and are also less likely to attend school. And we know that when 10 % more girls go to school, a country's GDP increases by an average of 3 %. 

Investing in the health of mothers is an investment in the whole of society and is the foundation for building sustainable, healthy and prosperous societies and communities. 

On Friday, world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and with it, the 17 new sustainable development goals – or “Global Goals” as they are now called – and 169 targets that provide a blueprint for the world’s development agenda that will guide us through to 2030. The agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity and one could say, this Agenda is the most ambitious of its kind. 

As patron of UNFPA, Maternity Foundation and in my capacity as a member of the High-Level Task Force for ICPD, I am committed to ensuring that gender equality, the empowerment of young people and sexual and reproductive health and rights for all are at the heart of the implementation of this international agenda. 

I am therefore very pleased that the topic of today's discussion is the exploration of new, technology-driven ways to prevent mothers - and their newborns - from dying during childbirth. We need these game-changing ideas if we are to close the persistent gaps and reach the targets set out in the new Global Goals. 

With more than 7 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide, new technologies are changing the landscape for both health care providers and their beneficiaries. However, the full potential of the field of mobile health - or mHealth - is still not yet fully understood or explored.
We do know, though, that no one can leverage the potential of mHealth alone. It will take intersectoral action - partnerships and collaborations - across continents, countries and between the public and private sectors.

I hope that this forum will inspire and motivate, and see the formation of new and innovative partnerships that can finally change these tragic statistics, because every mother and every newborn counts. 

Thank you.