Nigeria continues to grapple with one of the highest maternal and neonatal mortality burdens in the world. According to the Federal Ministry of Health (2023), nearly 57,000 women died in Nigeria in 2023 from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, UNICEF estimates that around 262,000 newborns die each year in Nigeria, the second-highest number globally. These deaths are mostly preventable, yet they persist due to a combination of weak health systems, limited access to skilled care, shortages of essential commodities, poor referral mechanisms, and a lack of trust that discourages families from seeking timely medical attention. Behind the statistics are mothers and children whose futures are cut short, underscoring the urgency of coordinated and sustained action.
It was against this backdrop that the Federal Government launched the Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation and Initiative (MAMII) in November 2024. Designed as a transformative effort to significantly reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by 2028, MAMII provides a comprehensive framework anchored on six strategic pillars: (1) improving knowledge and trust; (2) improving readiness and quality of skilled services and facilities; (3) improving commodities, technology, and supplies; (4) strengthening maternal, perinatal, and child disease surveillance and response as well as quality of care; (5) expanding access through sustainable financing and accountability; and (6) driving policy, governance, and stakeholder engagement. Together, these pillars serve as the foundation for systemic reform, combining community engagement, health system strengthening, innovation, and accountability.
At Technical Advice Connect (TAConnect), we continue to advance this national vision through the ongoing Accelerating Expanded Adoption of RMNCHN Innovations and Health Reform Project, which is being implemented across seven states – Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, and Yobe at both primary and secondary levels of care. The project remains focused on a singular goal to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes by sustaining the adoption, scale-up, and institutionalization of high-impact innovations across the continuum of care. Through this long-term effort, TAConnect continues to drive progress around three core objectives: increasing the uptake of maternal and newborn health innovations at community and facility levels, enhancing the quality of care for mothers and newborns, and strengthening health systems to ensure that improvements are both scalable and sustainable.
The organisation’s alignment with MAMII translates into practical, life-saving interventions which include supporting the line-listing of pregnant women, facilitating community dialogues, and health promotion campaigns targeting women, men, and adolescents. These efforts directly address the barriers of misinformation, stigma, and limited awareness that often delay or prevent care seeking.
To strengthen the readiness and quality of services, we are training frontline health workers in both primary and secondary health facilities and scaling proven MNH innovations such as postpartum haemorrhage bundles, which include the use of calibrated drapes to monitor blood loss, maternal Azithromycin, and multiple micronutrient supplementation. By integrating these tools and approaches into routine care, we are tackling the leading causes of maternal and newborn deaths while restoring confidence in health facilities. As part of our efforts to strengthen referrals, our hub-and-spoke referral model ensures timely and efficient linkages between communities, primary health care facilities, and secondary health facilities so that complications can be managed without delays.
What makes this alignment with MAMII significant is that it goes beyond project implementation to represent a model of partnership. By situating our interventions squarely within the government’s priorities, TAConnect is ensuring that innovations are not siloed or temporary but embedded into national and state health systems. This creates the conditions for sustainability, where states and communities have both the capacity and ownership to continue improving maternal and newborn outcomes long after project timelines end.
The potential impact of this partnership is profound. By aligning with MAMII, TAConnect is contributing to Nigeria’s movement closer to a future where preventable maternal and newborn deaths are a thing of the past. Each step, from building community trust to strengthening frontline care to embedding accountability through surveillance, contributes to saving lives today and shaping a stronger, more resilient health system for tomorrow. As Nigeria works toward its Safe Motherhood Strategy (2024–2028) target, partnerships like this demonstrate the power of alignment: when government leadership, evidence-based innovations, and technical expertise converge, the vision of safe motherhood and healthy childhoods becomes an achievable reality.
