India and Nigeria together accounted for a third of the deaths of pregnant women globally in 2010, latest UN figures said, even as maternal deaths declined by nearly half in the past two decades due to improvement in health systems and increased female education.

Globally, an estimated 287,000 women died in pregnancy and childbirth in 2010, a decline of 47 per cent from levels in 1990, with sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia accounting for 85 per cent of the those maternal deaths, according to a report on trends in maternal mortality between 1990 to 2010 released by UN Population Fund (UNFPA), World Health Organisation, UN Children’s Fund and the World Bank.