Improving the Survival of Mothers and Newborns in Ethiopia (2025)

Save the Children maintains a strong operational footprint across Ethiopia. We prioritise reaching remote, hard-to-access communities with life-saving health and nutrition services. The majority were supported through humanitarian health and nutrition interventions, with the largest reach in Tigray, Somali, Oromia, and Amhar. Our approach is grounded in empowering local actors and advancing locally led solutions through capacity building, joint planning, resource sharing, and strong, collaborative partnerships, particularly with government institutions and community-based organisations. We have an equitable partnerships strategy, a localisation policy and the Localisation Advisory Council that help guide our work.

This brief presents Save the Children’s work to improve maternal and newborn health (MNH) in Ethiopia through evidence-based, community‑centred, and systems‑strengthening approaches. Ethiopia has achieved notable reductions in maternal and neonatal mortality, yet progress remains uneven, especially in pastoralist and crisis‑affected regions where conflict, climate shocks, limited access to skilled care, and infrastructural barriers hinder service delivery. Save the Children partners with the Ministry of Health and local actors to advance key interventions such as Community‑Based Newborn Care, Integrated Community Case Management, competency‑based training for health workers, and innovative tools like newborn foot‑length screening to identify at‑risk infants early. Through localisation, capacity building, and targeted innovations—including mobile health teams and expanded referral systems—the organisation works to strengthen Ethiopia’s health system and accelerate progress toward national and SDG targets for reducing preventable maternal and newborn deaths.