Niger is the worst place in the world to be a mother in and Norway is the best: the 13th report on the state of mothers in the world presented by Save the Children says so. And if Afghanistan has left its position at the bottom of the list last year, Italy has stayed put in the 21st place. The classification includes 165 countries and considers factors such as health, education and the financial and social condition of mothers, as well as indicators on the state of children. The vast distances between the condition of mothers and children in the countries classified reflect the enormous gaps that exist in the world. In Norway a woman received an average of 18 years of education as opposed to 4 in Niger, where 14% of the Parliament is made up of women, versus 50% of Norwegians. All births in Norway are assisted by specialized personnel, whereas these are only present in one case in three in Niger, where one mother in 16 dies of causes linked to pregnancy or giving birth, a risk which in Norway is 1 in 7,600.