Help shape the International Maternal Newborn Health Conference (IMNHC)
July 18, 2025
Help shape the event in May 2026, and encourage your partners to take part, with the IMNHC 2026 promotional kit.
Country action
Zimbabwe
Photo © 2020 UNICEF/ Karel Prinsloo
Twenty year old pregnant Zanle Chisa get a check up at the Tanganda Rural Health Centre near Mutare, Zimbabwe, Feb, 5, 2020 .
Every Woman Every Newborn in Zimbabwe
Download the full profile with additional key demographics, progress against milestones, and more.
This profile was developed in May 2023, using data from 2018-2023.
Photo © 2013 UNICEF/ Jordi Matas
In April 2013 in Zimbabwe, a woman and her infant await care at the Madamombe rural health centre in Chivi District, Masvingo Province.
National mortality targets
Maternal mortality ratio
240 per 100,000 live births by 2025
Stillbirth rate
No data
Neonatal mortality rate
20 per 1,000 live births by 2025
Progress to meet the national maternal, newborn mortality and stillbirth reduction targets
Photo © 2013 UNICEF/ Jordi Matas
In April 2013 in Zimbabwe, a young woman, holding her infant, recovers in a maternity ward the day after giving birth, in Chivi District, Masvingo Province.
Progress to meet Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere coverage targets
MNH Acceleration Plan highlights
- Improve funding for maternal and newborn health by disaggregating maternal health and newborn expenditure data in the national health expenditures, mobilizing additional domestic resources and engaging the private sector.
- Increase the availability of high impact medical equipment and commodities through advocacy for increased domestic and donor investment into high impact technologies.
- Improve health worker availability and motivation: Use the results of the Health Labour Market analysis as advocacy to stem midwives attrition.
©UNICEF/Quarmyne.
Photo © 2011 UNICEF/ Giacomo Pirozzi
2011, A health worker checks blood pressure of a pregnant woman at Neshuro District Hospital in Mwenezi, some 150km from the town of Masvingo(south of Zimbabwe). UNICEF supports maternal and child health care including PMTCT at the hospital.
Quality of care in Zimbabwe
As part of its efforts to reduce maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths, Zimbabwe is taking steps to improve the quality of maternal and newborn health. These include:
- National Health Sector Quality Framework is operationalized, guided by local evidence on priority drivers of quality of care failures.
- Community engagement and social accountability on Maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) is improved, building on the implementation of the National Community Health Strategy.
News and events
Accelerating progress on maternal, newborn, and child survival: Political leadership and evidence-based solutions
July 17, 2025
Side-event during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
Promoting an integrated approach to maternal, newborn and child survival
July 16, 2025
Side-event during the Innovation and Action for Immunization and Child Survival Forum, Mozambique.
Resources
Maternal and Newborn Health Fund Annual Impact Report 2024
July 16, 2025
UNFPA released the Maternal and Newborn Health Fund Annual Impact Report 2024. Since 2010, countries supported by the Maternal and Newborn Health Fund have reduced maternal mortality by 40%, nearly twice the global rate, contributing to avert an estimated 75,000 maternal deaths. The Maternal and Newborn Health Fund is UNFPA’s flagship initiative to expand equitable access to quality reproductive, maternal, and newborn healthcare.
Programme manager’s handbook for maternal, child and adolescent health
July 2, 2025
The World Health Organization maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health e-handbook is a new resource for Ministry of health programme managers. It offers step-by-step guidance for implementing effective health programmes, from planning to monitoring and evaluation, with concise overviews of key activities and interventions along the life course.
The e-handbook references WHO documents, to ensure that programme managers have access to evidence-based strategies and best practices tailored to various contexts.
This e-handbook contains a prioritised list of documents; for a full list of documents go to the resource library for maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health and ageing: https://uhcc.who.int/mca/
Born Too Soon Supplement
June 30, 2025
A new journal supplement, “Born Too Soon: progress, priorities and pivots for preterm birth,” led by PMNCH, was published in BMC Reproductive Health last month. The supplement adapts and expands the content from the 2023 World Health Organization “Born Too Soon: A Decade of Action on Preterm Birth.”