Countdown to 2030: Tracking Progress Towards Universal Coverage for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health

This article in The Lancet analyzes the progress made towards improving intervention coverage, equity, and drivers of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) in the 81 countries that account for most child and maternal deaths in the world, and which are the focus of the “Countdown to 2030” collaboration. The authors describe how Countdown priorities are evolving in response to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universal health coverage challenge, arguing that in order to meet those targets, progress must be considerably accelerated with rapid scale-up of effective interventions and improvements to underlying socioeconomic conditions.

The article summarizes key gains and highlights three main conclusions: first, many countries are a long way from universal coverage for most essential interventions, and the services that are available are often poor in quality. Second, inequalities in intervention coverage within countries are shrinking, but at too slow a pace. Third, health-sector and non-health-sector drivers (like weak health systems or conflict settings, respectively) are impeding the delivery of high-quality services to all populations. Noting that major data gaps preclude the use of evidence to drive decision making and accountability, the authors describe Countdown to 2030’s investments in improvements to measurement in several areas and its prioritization of regional networks to enhance local analytic capacity and evidence for RMNCH.