United Nations ? Women are dying from complicated pregnancies and childbirth at almost the same rate they were in 1990, and the vast majority of deaths are occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, a report said Friday.

The report by three U.N. agencies and the World Bank estimated that 536,000 women died due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth in 2005, compared with 576,000 in 1990.

That represents an average annual decline of less than 1 percent – far below the 5.5 percent needed to achieve a U.N. goal of reducing the ratio by 75 percent by 2015, it said.

Ninety-nine percent of the deaths occurred in developing countries, according to the report.

“In this 21st century no woman should die giving life. Millions of lives are at stake and we must act now,” said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, one of the agencies behind the report.