With all eyes focused on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, Nigeria is looking to accelerate efforts to improve outcomes for women and babies. There is global consensus that accurate information about causes of death through mortality audits is needed to help inform efforts to end preventable maternal and perinatal deaths. USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) and Save the Children, together with several Nigerian professional associations, set out to document experiences to date in implementing maternal death review, perinatal death review, and/or integrated maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) processes in Nigeria. The study sought to identify factors that have facilitated or inhibited the uptake and sustainability of implementing MPDSR systems in order to improve the quality of care and to prevent future deaths.
Nigeria was one of four countries selected by MCSP as part of a multi-country assessment of MPDSR processes at sub-national level. This report presents the results specifically from two states: Ebonyi and Kogi. Alongside this in-depth assessment, a broader landscape and in-depth analysis on MPDSR efforts across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria has been conducted and published elsewhere.