Generating Political Will for Safe Motherhood: A Case Study from Indonesia

Jeremy Shiffman, Syracuse University

Safe motherhood activists are disturbed that despite over a decade of serious attention the world continues to face a maternal mortality crisis. They widely agree about the medical causes and interventions needed, and argue that the key to surmounting the crisis is the generation of political will. What 'political will' means, however, has been left as an unopened black box in the maternal mortality literature. What causes governments to give priority to the issue of safe motherhood, given that national political systems are burdened with thousands of issues to sort through each year? This paper identifies four factors that heighten the likelihood that an issue will rise to national-level attention. Drawing on agenda-setting theory and extensive fieldwork in the country, the paper presents a case study of safe motherhood in Indonesia from 1987-1997 to highlight how developing countries facing safe motherhood crises may systematically generate political will for the cause.