One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to improve maternal health, with the target of reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015. In an effort to accelerate progress towards achieving this MDG, this paper brings together high-quality information on a wide range of promising approaches that aim to improve maternal health outcomes. These global promising approaches, based on field research and practice by experienced organizations working in this arena, can serve as a useful starting point in the process to improve current maternal health programming. This paper will be useful for World Bank staff when assisting client countries in developing their National Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and costing health sector plans. Moreover, the paper provides Bank staff with substantive evidence to share with governments on how best to prioritize and implement maternal health programs, and scale up efforts to achieve progress. Although primarily intended for use by Bank staff, we hope this guide will also be useful to governments, other international donor agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), who are interested in improving maternal health, and minimizing the disparities that currently exist between industrialized and developing countries.