UNITED NATIONS, New York – “My great-grandmother was a midwife,” said Erika Martinez, 23. “She was one of my biggest inspirations.”

Ms. Martinez is a midwifery student in Tulancingo, Mexico, working in an underserved community. “There is a health care house, but there are no permanent staff,” she explained. “In my community there are many youth pregnancies, and there are no dedicated health staff who could care for women or take care of teenagers.”

Shakila Parvin has been a UNFPA-trained midwife in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar since 2019.

ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan – "On my first day at work in the camp, I cried a lot. At that time, I had not worked with refugees before, and I had no idea about their conditions," Ammoun Kitabi, a 58-year-old midwife, told UNFPA, at the reproductive health clinic in Zaatari camp where she tends to Syrian refugees. "The reason I cried was because I knew that most of them had everything they needed in their country.”

Ms. Kitabi knows better than most.

LUAMBO, Democratic Republic of the Congo – At only 35, Nsenga Malu has lived many lives. In one, she was a girl growing up in the city of Luambo, in her home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then, her childhood halted abruptly when she married at the age of 15 and immediately began childbearing. Within 13 years, she’d had eight children, with an average of 11 months between pregnancies.

UNITED NATIONS, New York – UNFPA launched its annual humanitarian report today, revealing a critical need to scale up assistance for crisis-affected populations.

Antananarivo/Madagascar – “It wasn’t until I stood alongside my classmates in the delivery room, encouraging an anxious mother-to-be as she gave birth to a little baby boy, that I realised just how valuable this work can be.”

For Tahiana Rakotovao, 24, a lifelong dream of becoming a midwife came a step closer to reality during her studies at Madagascar’s Interregional Training Institute for Paramedics  (IFIRP), in the capital city of Antananarivo.

NEW YORK, United Nations/Afghanistan – Even before the current humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the situation for pregnant women was dire – the country had one of the highest maternal death rates in the world.

PORT-AU-PRINCE/NEW YORK – UNFPA and partner agencies airlifted more than 125 tonnes of life-saving supplies to earthquake-shattered parts of Haiti, part of the EU Humanitarian Air Bridge operation.