The first $1 million Caplow Children’s Prize was won by a Pakistani pediatrician who hopes to save hundreds of newborns in one Karachi neighborhood.

Dr. Anita Zaidi, one of the first doctors trained by Pakistan’s Aga Khan University and who has additional degrees from Duke and Harvard, beat 550 other entries, including those from major charities like Doctors Without Borders.

The neighborhood she plans to help, Rehri Goth, is a fishing village facing a mangrove swamp. Even though it is within the borders of Pakistan’s financial capital, one of the world’s largest cities, its residents are so poor and so cut off from medical care that 11 percent of local children die before age 5 — usually during birth or in the first month after it.

“The population lives in scattered clusters and is very poorly linked to public transport,” Dr. Zaidi said. Most cannot afford any kind of private transportation, so mothers are forced to give birth at home. If a crisis like obstructed labor or hemorrhage develops, little can be done.