Improving Maternal Health Measurement Capacity and Use

Ending preventable maternal mortality and correcting unacceptable levels of disparity are essential to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, which focuses on ensuring healthy lives for all. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) released “Strategies toward Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM),” a direction-setting report outlining targets and strategies for all countries that will contribute to reducing global maternal mortality in the SDG period. To plan, track and accelerate progress towards ending preventable maternal mortality, representatives from UN agencies, academia, research and international development and advocacy agencies led the development of a comprehensive monitoring framework for ending preventable maternal mortality. The framework contains 25 indicators and 6 stratifiers that address the full spectrum of determinants of maternal health and survival.

Project Aims and Goal

The “Improving Maternal Health Measurement Capacity and Use” project will work closely with countries to further develop, test and validate a subset of the indicators in the monitoring framework. The project will provide technical assistance and resources to encourage indicator adoption and routine use. By doing so, we aim to improve measurement capacity for maternal health through a) the development and validation of indicators to inform global standards and b) support to countries for the adoption and use of the indicators. The ultimate goal of this project is to provide much-needed knowledge, research and evaluation data as well as validated measurement tools for tracking progress towards ending preventable maternal mortality effectively and efficiently.

Significance

The project will encourage country engagement, ownership and investment to apply a human rights-based approach to reduce maternal mortality by addressing the full spectrum of the determinants of maternal health and survival. The project will also support country decision-makers in setting maternal health priorities for the global health agenda that respond to the needs of their citizens and, in doing so, drive change both at home and around the world.

Expected Outcomes

  1. A set of well-developed, tested,and validated indicators focused on maternal health and survival.
  2. Increased adoption and use of the EPMM indicators by country decision-makers.
  3. Greater country engagement and commitment to improving maternal health.

Partnership

As a multi-partner initiative, this project will leverage and coordinate the strengths, resources and relevant ongoing work of a diverse set of implementing agencies. The Women and Health Initiative of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health will lead this project with specific efforts coordinated by the Department of Reproductive Health and Research (RHR) at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) in partnership with the FCI Program of Management Sciences for Health (MSH). The individuals and organizations represented within the EPMM Working Group—including Maternal Health Task Force, WHO, WRA, the FCI Program of MSH, Jhpiego, the Maternal Child Survival Program of USAID (MCSP), UNFPA, UNICEF and USAID—will also provide support throughout the life of the project.

Learn more about Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality>>