On Wednesday, U. N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a three-day summit announced the launch of a global campaign, whose main aim would be to save lives of as many as 16 million mothers and children in the coming five years.

The name of the campaign would be Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health. At the summit, Governments, philanthropists, and private aid groups across the world assured that they would provide $40 billion funds for the campaign.

Ban said that women and children play an important role in the development of any nation. He further said that spending money on the well-being of women and children will eventually help in building a stable, peaceful, and productive society all over the world.

It is worth mentioning that every year across the world, around 8 million children die before the age of 5 and about 350,000 women die during pregnancy or childbirth.

The WHO will head that global strategy and an annual progress report will be submitted to the U. N. General Assembly.

In the year 2000, the U. N. introduced ‘Millennium Development Goals’ with the aim to decline child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015.

The main challenge for the UN would be to improve the maternal health, which is quite difficult and costly.