The Exemplars in Global Health program, in partnership with Countdown to 2030, conducted research in seven countries that experienced declines in neonatal and maternal mortality more quickly than would be expected based on economic development.
A framework was established to contextualize success factors across these countries, recognizing that drivers of progress likely varied across higher- and lower-mortality settings. This framework categorizes countries into five distinct phases based on their maternal, neonatal, and stillbirth mortality levels.
As a part of this analysis, key Maternal Newborn Health (MNH)-related indicators were assessed by phase, using evidence from over 150 countries. This allows for a country to contextualize its performance on key MNH-related indicators compared to other countries with similar or slightly lower mortality levels.
The Exemplars in Global Health program has created an interactive tool so that countries can position and benchmark themselves in this transition framework. Across a range of 20 indicators, this tool will signify if a selected country is ahead of track, on track, or not on track for its phase. As relevant, it will also compare a selected country to NMR/MMR Exemplar countries that made particularly rapid progress for a selected indicator, describing relevant learnings that may be useful.