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Every Woman Every Newborn EverywherE
Healthy Futures

Our Focus

Quality of care

© UNFPA/Eduard Bîz.
Valentina, from Odessa, Ukraine, while in labour at the Municipal Clinical Hospital Nr.1 from Chisinau, Moldova,  in April 2022.

There has been an unprecedented improvement in access to essential care and services in the past ten years; yet, women, adolescent girls and babies continue to die at an unacceptable rate during pregnancy, childbirth and the first month after birth.

The culprit is the quality of the care they receive. In fact, poor-quality care is responsible for more deaths than lack of access to care in low-and middle income countries.

‘Quite honestly, there can be no universal health coverage without quality care.

– World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

©UNFPA/Luis Tato.
Yvonne (right) waits along with other pregnant women to be attended by a midwife prior to a screening with portable ultrasound technology at Ntimaru Sub County Level 4 Hospital in Kehancha, Migori County, Kenya in June 2022.

Quality health services provide care that is:

The World Health Organization released in 2016 a Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Quality of Care Standards Framework detailing the components of quality care and what it takes to implement it:

Many countries are building quality into their health systems,  an arduous process to change at national, subnational and community levels the way health services are designed – with the engagement of the communities they serve – and provided. 

Improving quality of care requires:

  • Good governance;
  • A skilled and competent health workforce that is supported and motivated;
  • Financing mechanisms that enable and encourage quality care;
  • Medicines, devices and technologies that are available, safe and appropriately regulated;
  • Accessible and well-equipped healthcare facilities.

See also the work of the Quality of Care Network.

Source: Quality of Care, World Health Organization https://www.who.int/health-topics/quality-of-care.

The impact

  • Improved quality of care could save up to 1 million newborn and 150,000 women lives each year*.
  • 60% of deaths in low-and-middle income countries from conditions requiring healthcare are due to poor quality care.**
  • An estimated 1.8 billion people (24% of the world’s population), live in fragile contexts that struggle to deliver quality essential health services. A large proportion of preventable maternal, childhood and neonatal deaths occur in these settings***.

* The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era.
**  and *** Key data https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/quality-health-services.

Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere calls for quality care as an essential step to reduce maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths.

©UNFPA/Zaeem Abdul Rahman.
A midwife, who is supported by the UNFPA Mobile Health Team, providing services to a patient in the earthquake affected Gayan District, Paktika, Afghanistan, in July 2022.

News and events

Lessons to end postpartum hemorrhage

June 10, 2026

First webinar in a four-part series sharing lessons from the Accelerating Measurable Progress and Leveraging Investments for Postpartum Hemorrhage Impact (AMPLI-PPHI) project. Organized by Jhpiego.

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Resources

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Key Messages on Women’s,Children’s and Adolescents’ Health

For the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly

These messages were developed by the United Advocacy Working Group for Maternal, Newborn and Child health.

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International Maternal Newborn Health Conference 2026: country posters

Posters presented by 40 country delegations at the International Maternal Newborn Health Conference 2026.

View Resource

Unified Advocacy Asks for Maternal and Newborn Health

International Maternal Newborn Health
Conference (IMNHC) 2026

These key messages and advocacy asks are intended to equip partners with evidence-based messaging and
resources in the context of IMNHC 2026.

View Resource

Explore further and accelerate change

Quality of care

Health workforce – Midwifery

Commodities

Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response

Quality of Care Network