By Iyemah David
The Federal Government of Nigeria has said the new Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII) aims to significantly reduce Nigeria’s maternal mortality rate through a coordinated, sector-wide approach focused on high-burden areas.
Dr Dayo Adeyanju, Lead of the MAMII Initiative, said this during a webinar titled “Financing Maternal & Child Death Crashing Intervention: Achieving Scale, Scope and Sustainability for Impact.”
The event was organised by Development Governance International Consult (DGI Consult), a governance, research, and institutional capacity-strengthening consultancy.
Speaking at the session, Adeyanju said MAMII represented a major shift from past efforts that operated in silos and failed to address the full spectrum of maternal health challenges.
“Over the last decade, maternal mortality in Nigeria has stagnated between 512 and 576 deaths per 100,000 live births.
“This is because interventions were fragmented, focusing separately on commodities, personnel, or community outreach, without integrating all the drivers of maternal deaths,” he explained.
He noted that MAMII had identified 172 Local Government Areas (LGAs) responsible for 55 per cent of the country’s maternal deaths.
“The programme also highlights key contributing factors such as delays in seeking care, poor coordination, and financing gaps.
“Drawing from the Nigeria Health Sector Investment Renewal Initiative, MAMII employs a unified approach that aligns all tiers of government and health agencies under a single coordinated plan, project, report, and conversation.
“The programme aims to reach 2.9 million pregnant women in these LGAs with timely, free, and comprehensive maternal and newborn care,” he said.
He said the initiative directly targeted the five delays that lead to maternal deaths.
“These include the delay in deciding to seek care, the delay in reaching a health facility, and the delay in receiving care at the facility.
“Additionally, the initiative addresses the delay in making appropriate referrals and the delay in ensuring accountability.
“By tackling each of these critical points, the initiative aims to improve maternal health outcomes and reduce preventable deaths.
According to him, key interventions under MAMII include: Deployment of trained community-based health workers to track and support pregnant women.
“Free emergency obstetric care, including caesarean sections, health insurance enrolment for mothers and newborns and dedicated emergency transportation, especially for nighttime deliveries.
“Upgrades to Basic and Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (BEmONC, CEmONC) centres, real-time tracking of high-risk pregnancies through the Nigeria Digital in Health platform and incentives for institutional deliveries, which significantly reduce mortality risk.”
He said, so far, MAMII had reached 15 states, with more than 500,000 pregnant women already line-listed.
“Memorandums of Understanding have been signed with 10 states for the deployment of community health workers.
“This is a departure from the past. We’re integrating solutions across all drivers of maternal mortality, coordinating agencies from community to tertiary levels, and operating under a single national framework.
“With strong collaboration from the states, we can reduce out-of-pocket costs, increase institutional deliveries, and ultimately crash maternal mortality in Nigeria,” Adeyanju said.
