H ard-won success in efforts to stop women and babies dying in childbirth have faced a serious setback with recent cuts to foreign aid - with the trend now reversing in some countries, new figures show. Significant progress in tackling preventable maternal mortality across the globe had seen the rate decline by 40 per cent in the last two decades. However, the latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests this progress has slowed in recent years and recent aid cuts by the US and other countries will start to reverse those crucial gains. With Donald Trump in particular slashing America’s foreign assistance programmes by 57 per cent last year, global aid fell by 23 per cent in 2025 compared to 2024, and is projected to drop by a further 5.8 per cent in 2026. Maternal mortality is particularly acute in parts of Africa, and is already playing out in the Central African Republic, which has the second highest rate of neonatal deaths globally, according to the UN.…