The Maternal Health Thematic Fund Annual Report 2016

The Maternal Health Thematic Fund (MHTF) is UNFPA’s flagship programme for accelerating improved maternal health. Since its inception in 2008, it has contributed to averting an estimated 92,000 maternal deaths through strategic interventions in 39 countries with the highest maternal mortality and morbidity rates. 

This 2016 progress report captures results from the second phase (2014-2017) of the programme. It focuses on progress in three cross-cutting principles: equality in access, quality of care, and accountability in the five priority areas of midwifery, emergency obstetric and newborn care, maternal death surveillance and response, obstetric fistula and first-time young mothers.

MHTF aims to strengthen health systems and ensure that women and girls have access to quality maternal health services when and where they need them. It is strongly positioned to contribute to reaching the new Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goals 3 and 5, and the targets for reducing maternal mortality, ending the preventable deaths of newborns, and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health care by 2030.