Almost half the Millennium Development Goals are not even getting talked about enough, a leading Pakistani doctor engaged in maternal health says.Maternal health is addressed by goals three, four and five of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Dr Farkhanda Ather from Pakistan who has been engaged actively with maternal health issues told IPS. These are to promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, and more specifically also to improve maternal health.

Dr Ather was in London to address a meeting on 'The Women the World Forgot' organised by the non-governmental organisation Interact Worldwide. ''In Pakistan goal five would mean reduction of maternal mortality by three-quarters from 1990 to 2015,'' she said. ''But there has been no big change through these years. There are only nine years left, and we are not on track.''

In 1990 Pakistan had a maternal mortality of between 340 and 500 per 100,000 births,'' she said. ''In some areas like Baluchistan it is extremely high, up to 700. In Afghanistan it is more than a thousand.'' The other goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and more broadly, to develop a global partnership for development. The heads of government who agreed these goals in 2000 set the year 2015 as the date for meeting specific targets......

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