At the Women Deliver conference in Washington, DC today, Melinda Gates announced that the Gates Foundation would invest $1.5 billion in programs to improve maternal and infant health across the globe.

“It is not that the world doesn’t know how to save the 350,000 mothers and 3 million newborns who die every year. It is that we haven’t tried hard enough,” Gates said.

The foundation’s investment will span five years and support a variety of projects related to family planning, health care, and nutrition services for women and children. Projects in countries with high levels of maternal and infant mortality will be prioritized. The first wave of grants includes $94 million for programs in India and $60 million in Ethiopia.

Image from babasteve via Flickr Creative Commons