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Country action

© UNICEF/Onafuwa.
A portrait of Ngozi Nwabunwannem and her baby, Goodluck at Otuocha Primary Healthcare Center, Anambra State, Nigeria, in June 2023.

Every Woman Every Newborn in Nigeria

Download the full profile with additional key demographics, progress against milestones, and more.

© UNICEF/Esiebo. A woman holds her infant at Father Matthias Health Care Centre in the town of Naka, in Gwer West, Benue State in April 2013.

National mortality targets

Maternal
mortality ratio

27 per 100,000 live births
by 2030

Stillbirth
rate

27 per 1,000 total births
by 2030

Neonatal mortality rate

15 per 1,000 live births
by 2030

Progress to meet the national maternal, newborn mortality and stillbirth reduction targets

© UNICEF/Onafuwa. Aisha Tukur Isyaku, the Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Health Supplies Management Agency takes a tour of the agency warehouse in Kaduna, Nigeria in June 2023.

Progress to meet Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere coverage targets

MNH Acceleration Plan highlights

In 2024, Nigeria’s MNH Acceleration Plan is focusing on three priorities:

  • Advocate for and support the subnational levels to establish a Family health department, and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent and elderly health plus nutrition (RMNCAEH+N) multi-stakeholder platforms in 18 States. Implementing the MNH Acceleration plan at the subnational level is critical in making impact in MNH activities. In the four states where these structures are in place, we see improved health indices.
  • Strengthen and harmonize all digital technologies for better monitoring and evaluation for maternal, perinatal and neonatal health services and deaths: for the country to measure performance in MNH activities, there is need for quality data from the services and lesson learnt from medical deaths audits.
  • Support forecasting, procurement and utilization of MNH commodities and technologies at all levels: The successful implementation of MNH activities is based on adequate availability of MNH commodities.

©UNICEF/Esiebo.
In April 2013 in Nigeria, Pregnant women wait to receive antenatal care at Gre West Government General Hospital in the town of Naka, in Gwer West, Benue State, Nigeria, in April 2013.

© UNICEF/Boman Rayanattu Adamamu, a midwife at Kwando primqry health care centre attends to a patient in November 2023.

Quality of care in Nigeria

Nigeria is one of the 11 countries that set-up the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (Quality of Care Network). Nigeria’s successes in improving quality of care for maternal, newborn and child health are essential to help reduce maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths. These include:

  • The National Strategy on quality of care for maternal and newborn health  was developed and deployed, and a technical working group established to coordinate the quality of care activities at national level. Thanks to a similar structure at state level, the number of quality of care learning sites grew from 112 in 12 states to 208 in 24 states by end of 2022.
  • The World Health Organization’s standards to improve quality of maternal and newborn care, small and sick newborns care, and children and young adolescents care in health facilities are adopted.
  • The 62nd National council on health resolved to scale up quality of care implementation and this has drastically added a large number of sites called scale up sites which kept increasing by the day.
  • The National Quality of Care Learning Platform was deployed, providing information and updates on quality of care activities around the country.  The platform provides information for peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange among parties who support quality of care for reproductive, maternal, newborn, adolescent and elderly health plus nutrition (RMNCAEH+N)
  • A national maternal and perinatal death sruveillance and response MPDSR bill passed by Parliament provides a protective legal environment for MPDSR to safeguard its “no name, no blame” ethos and the confidentiality of information, without impeding the rights of deceased’s families to seek legal redress.

News and events

Resources

Guidance on developing national learning health-care systems to sustain and scale up delivery of quality maternal, newborn and child health care

Improving the quality of care for maternal, newborn and child health: implementation guide for national, district and facility levels

This implementation guide provides practical guidance for policy makers, programme managers, health practitioners and other actors working to establish and implement quality of care (QoC) programmes for maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) at national, district and facility level.

Integrating stakeholder and community engagement in quality of care initiatives for maternal, newborn and child health

This module aims to make stakeholder and community engagement an integral part of quality improvement initiatives and suggests approaches to make stakeholder and community engagement comprehensive and meaningful.