The possibility for NGOs to increase human rights with cooperation from the governments - A comparative case study within Myanmar and Afghanistan measuring maternal mortality

Abstract: One of the target goals for sustainable development is the reduction of maternal mortality, which is a big health issue in some countries. Even if the research on maternal health care has come far and with the right expertise and supplies, almost all maternal deaths would be preventable. A working force to reduce the issues within maternal mortality in many countries are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), but it has shown that the prevention of such issues can be prevented or extended if the government of the country is not willing to receive or collaborate with NGOs. Former studies have shown that NGOs have the capability to hold great impact within external health-issues, but to reach that goal of their full potential NGOs must be included in certain governmental matters like healthcare plans and information. By using Bell and Carens ethical dilemmas on international human rights, this text will use a comparative case study with the most similar system design on Afghanistan and Myanmar, where as Afghanistan receives a significant bigger amount of NGO-help and Myanmar contradicts external forces. The data presented in this text showed that the maternal mortality in Afghanistan has reduced to a much larger extent than in Myanmar by the help of contacts and collaboration with NGOs, but still both countries have not received qualified information to the civilians on recommendations for a healthy childbirth because of the different views on the normative pregnancy between the western world (the value that NGOs hold) and the countries. Therefore, NGOs should work with the changing the norms of the country to meet a more humanitarian standard point of view. This text still lacks information from any kind of first-hand source, and has only been tested on Afghanistan and Myanmar, therefore this text will in the end purpose some recommendations for future research.