Nigeria intensifies efforts to reduce maternal and newborn mortality

Health stakeholders in Nigeria are calling for increased financial investment to combat high rates of maternal and newborn mortality. Experts, including Pavel Ursu of the World Health Organization, emphasize that increasing healthcare access must be accompanied by improvements in the quality of clinical care, noting that facility utilization alone does not guarantee better outcomes if essential medicines, equipment, and trained specialists are lacking.

In response to the crisis, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration has inaugurated a task force of senior health experts under the Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII). This federal program targets 172 high-burden Local Government Areas across 33 states, which account for approximately 55 percent of maternal deaths in the country.

The MAMII initiative aims to increase health facility utilization and skilled birth attendance by at least 60 percent, with the broader goal of achieving a 30 percent reduction in maternal mortality nationwide.