Mama Baby Fund’s Neha Mankani featured on TIME100 Climate list for work on prenatal, neonatal healthcare
Neha Mankani, the miracle midwife providing essential care to underserved mothers in Karachi’s coastal communities, has been featured on TIME Magazine’s TIME100 Climate list as a “Defender”. She joins some of the biggest names in the fight against climate change, including CEOs, ministers, heads of state and even Pope Leo XIV. She is the only Pakistani on the list.
Her Mama Baby Fund, which provides women and children in coastal and climate struck communities with life-saving care, has come a long way since it was started 10 years ago. The clinic she established on Baba Island handled 4,000 prenatal visits last year and her organisation paid for 200 babies to be treated at neonatal intensive care units. Her fund also runs an ambulance boat to transport patients to Keamari for medical care.
Speaking to TIME, she said communities on the frontlines of climate change are hardly represented in decision making. She said women are often the worst affected and the most innovative when it comes to finding practical solutions, yet they are excluded from discussions on their issues.
Midwifery, the activist said, was a low-cost, accessible solution to a major health crisis — Pakistan has one of the highest neonatal mortality rates in the world — but it is often not included in policy frameworks.
Emphasising the importance of on-ground expertise and the need for prevention over response to climate emergencies, she said her “hope lies in bridging knowledge equity, ensuring that global conversations on the climate crisis finally reflect the wisdom, realities, and economics of those living through it”.
“True climate justice,” she added, “means ensuring that finance and decision-making don’t remain trapped in distant boardrooms but instead flow to the people and systems on the frontlines”.
Prior to her recognition by TIME, Mankani was on the BBC’s 100 Women list in 2023 where she stood alongside titans such as Michelle Obama, Amal Clooney and Huda Kattan. She was also given a Women of Courage Award by the US mission in Pakistan.
Cover image via Mama Baby Fund/Instagram
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