Photo by Karen Kasmauski/MCSP
295,000 MOTHERS &
5.3M CHILDREN DIE GLOBALLY EACH YEAR
including over 2.5M newborns who die in their first month and almost 1 million on their first day of life.
BY THE NUMBERS
USAID'S IMPACT SINCE THE 2012 CALL TO ACTION
13.3M
health workers trained in maternal and child health and nutrition
12M
women gave birth in a health facility
9.3M
newborns reached with care after delivery
85.2M
treatments provided to children for pneumonia and diarrhea
41.1M
children vaccinated against deadly preventable diseases
14.9M
people gaining access to basic drinking water
24M
women reached with voluntary family planning services, annually
28M
children reached with nutrition programs
IN 2018 ALONE, USAID HELPED 81 MILLION WOMEN AND CHILDREN ACCESS ESSENTIAL — AND OFTEN LIFE SAVING — HEALTH SERVICES.
OUR APPROACH
MATERNAL & CHILD HEALTH
Mothers and children play invaluable roles in families, communities, societies, and economies. One million children are left motherless each year, and these children are then less likely to survive childhood.
In the past ten years, USAID has helped save the lives of more than 9.3 million children and 340,000 women.
Learn MorePhoto by Kate Holt for JHPIEGO/MCSP
FAMILY PLANNING
An estimated 214 million women want to delay or stop childbearing but can’t access contraception. Satisfying the global unmet need for family planning could reduce maternal deaths by 30 percent.
In our priority countries, the percent of demand for family planning satisfied by a modern method has increased from 46% in 2012 to 53% in 2017.
Learn MorePhoto byKate Holt for Jhpiego/MCSP
MALARIA
Approximately 125 million pregnant women annually are at risk of contracting malaria. USAID-supported malaria interventions are implemented to reduce maternal and child mortality.
In countries supported by the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), nationwide surveys show significant declines in mortality rates among children under five, up to 67%.
Learn MorePhoto by Kate Holt/MCSP and Jhpiego
NUTRITION
Malnutrition is an underlying cause of an estimated 45% of child deaths and anemia contributes to 20% of maternal mortality. USAID supports country-owned programs that address the root causes of malnutrition to save the lives of women and children and lay the foundation for healthier futures.
Over the past 10 years, the prevalence of child stunting has decreased from 40% to 32.8% across 19 USAID-supported countries.
Learn MorePhoto by Spring Project/USAID
WATER, SANITATION & HYGIENE
Investments in water, sanitation and hygiene empower women, increase productivity and promote gender equality. Every $1 spent on improving sanitation results in an estimated $5 of economic gain.
Since 2014, USAID’s water activities have resulted in more than 4.3 million people with improved access to sanitation facilities.
Learn MorePhoto by Allan Gichigi/MCSP
STORIES
Photo: Project Santé, USAID
COMMUNITY-BASED HEALTH POSTS SAVE LIVES FOR CHILDREN SUFFERING FROM MALNUTRITION
Meet 11-year-old Andrea and her family who live in Belle Fontaine, Haiti, an isolated community with inadequate health infrastructure. A USAID-supported community health post was set up in Andrea’s community and she and her siblings were able to receive immediate treatment for malnutrition.
Read MorePhoto: Anne Daugherty/USAID
HOW USAID HELPED SHIFT NATIONAL POLICY, BRINGING MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO FAMILIES
Meet Community Health Volunteer Benary, who counsels first-time users on family planning options in Soanierana, Madagascar. Learn how in 2018, through technical and financial support from USAID and its partners, Madagascar passed a national law allowing CHVs to administer injectable contraceptives such as Depo Provera.
Read MorePhoto: USAID EMAS Profit Syan
ADDRESSING PATIENT CARE AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL: EMERGENCY REFERRAL SYSTEM PROVIDES VITAL LINKS BETWEEN INDONESIAN COMMUNITIES AND THEIR HEALTH SYSTEM
In 2018, USAID turned an electronic emergency referral system over to the private sector in Indonesia. It is now being sustained by a private social enterprise and has expanded by 50%. See how the mobile phone-based system helped refer mother Desi to a nearby hospital, saving her and her son’s lives.
Read MorePhoto: Karen Kasmauski/MCSP
QUALITY CONTROL: SAVING TIME AND MONEY THROUGH LOCAL DRUG QUALITY TESTING
In Nigeria, learn how USAID assisted two quality control laboratories to achieve international accreditation so that vaccines and maternal, newborn, and malaria medicines can now be tested for quality domestically, strengthening in-country capacity.
Read MorePhoto: Bethelehem Asegedew / Core Group Polio Project.
VOLUNTEERS IN ETHIOPIA ARE STRENGTHENING ROUTINE IMMUNIZATION IN HARD-TO-REACH COMMUNITIES
Meet Ubah, a mother of three in the remote Somali region of Ethiopia. Her children had missed several vaccinations until she learned about the importance of immunization from a community health volunteer. See how USAID is fighting polio in Ethiopia by linking pregnancy registrations and vaccination tracking.
Read MoreCOUNTRY UPDATES
- SELECT A COUNTRY
- Afghanistan
- Bangladesh
- Burma
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Ethiopia
- Ghana
- Haiti
- India
- Indonesia
- Kenya
- Liberia
- Madagascar
- Mali
- Malawi
- Mozambique
- Nepal
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- South Sudan
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Yemen
- Zambia
Click on a country: USAID's efforts in maternal and child survival focus on 25 priority countries that account for more than 66% of global maternal and child deaths.
Afghanistan
Counseled more than 100,000 women on voluntary family planning following delivery, reaching 78% of all supported deliveries
Bangladesh
Developed an electronic records management system for use at the community and district level, which will allow for data to flow from 122 health facilities into national recording systems
Burma
Reached more than 1,150 birth attendants with hands-on skills trainings in five states and regions and trained an additional 850 health workers in facilities by using local resources in the same model
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Developed a National Child Health Strategic Plan, which calls for 8,000 more community care sites which would cover 70% of need and save the lives of over 300,000 children over five years
Ethiopia
Improved access to basic sanitation services for 11,000 peri-urban and rural households and 28,000 urban residents
Ghana
Supported clinical audits to review health insurance claims, which resulted in recovering $1.4 million from 1,082 facilities since 2014
Haiti
Assisted 68,000 newborns in receiving postnatal health checks within 72 hours, though supporting health providers
India
Developed a mobile phone-based patient-satisfaction survey to improve quality in 1,100 health facilities in the public sector, now being scaled up to include private facilities
Indonesia
Supported a comprehensive private-sector study to capture the impact of the Government’s health-insurance scheme on the private health market, including priorities for the private sector and level of competition provided to the public sector
Kenya
Established human-resource units with appropriate manpower in 38 counties, which helps to maintain consistent and appropriate staffing and mitigate workforce strikes
Liberia
Developed a national scale-up plan for chlorhexidine, which allowed 75 percent of babies born in public and private facilities to have the life-saving gel applied to their umbilical cords after birth
Madagascar
Improved diagnostic practices for the plague, which patients admitted to hospitals with plague-like symptoms were truly infected and freed beds for sick children
Mali
Reached four million children under age five with seasonal malaria prevention, which reduced the prevalence of malaria from 31 percent of children under age five in 2015 to 19 percent in 2018
Malawi
Supported the integration of the USAID-supported bubble Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (bCPAP) into a suite of newborn interventions, now being scaled up nationwide with the support of private foundations
Mozambique
Increased the percentage of women who used modern methods of voluntary family planning from two percent to 18 percent in Sofala, and from nine percent to 23 percent in Nampula, the two target provinces with the highest population growth rates
Nepal
Reduced equity gaps through focused outreach, which effectively eliminated the gap in access to iron-rich foods between the highest- and lowest-wealth quintiles of the population
Nigeria
Treated 12,200 children under age 5 for pneumonia, and 5,800 for diarrhea
Pakistan
Increased vaccination coverage from 15 percent to 57 percent in under-privileged districts in Sindh Province
Rwanda
Developed and validated a national health-financing strategy, which will enable increased advocacy for the national health budget
Senegal
Evaluated the certification examination for midwives and nurses to more accurately judge preparedness
South Sudan
Broadcast 2,187 media pieces on voluntary family planning and reproductive health, which accounts for 13 percent of all broadcast news in the country
Tanzania
Reached the families of more than one million children with messages about key feeding practices for infants and young children through a social and behavior-change program now being used nationally
Uganda
Developed the first-ever national immunization policy, which is improving the quality and reach of immunization nationwide
Yemen
Zambia
Rolled-out resource planning software to increase the efficiency, transparency, and accountability of scarce resources
REPORTS & RESOURCES
Last updated: October 11, 2019

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