On April 7th, 2025, the World commemorates the 77th World Health Day. While progress has been made in reducing the number of women who die during pregnancy or childbirth, the rate of preventable deaths among newborns from curable diseases remains concerning.
Pregnancy should be a time of immense hope and a positive experience for all women, instead it’s a dangerous experience. According to recent statistics, “close to 300,000 women lose their life due to pregnancy or childbirth each year; over 2 million babies die in their first month of life, and around 2 million more are stillborn. This is roughly 1 preventable death every 7 seconds” [WHO 2025]
The gap between health needs and the resources available to meet them is alarmingly wide. By taking immediate action and investing more in maternal healthcare, the global health community can save lives, enhance well-being, and promote the rights and opportunities of newborns and their mothers through building stronger and more resilient health systems for all.
As Humana People to People Movement, together with our members, our health programmes mainly respond to the HIV epidemic, TB, malaria, malnutrition and maternal care. We have established project structures, but the true strength of our health programmes lies in our connections with the communities we serve.
On this day, we take the opportunity to highlight examples of projects from some of our members, ADPP Mozambique and DAPP Namibia, which are committed to prioritising maternal healthcare as the first defence that protects mothers and their newborn babies.
ADPP Mozambique’s Tsogolo Tsicana (Go Girl Go – The Future is Yours) project works with more than 13,000 vulnerable Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) in and out of school who are either heads of households, pregnant, lactating mothers or living with HIV to challenge family dynamics and cultural beliefs that hold them back. AGYWs are informed on how to take good care of their health and the future of their newborn baby to live a positive and healthy life. The project increases access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHRs) for AGYW as the first step to prevent unplanned pregnancies.
In clubs, AGYWs share experiences, make informed decisions about their sexual health and are empowered to overcome challenges that negatively contribute to poor Sexual Reproductive Health and Maternal Child Health in the community.
In Nambia, the Total Control of the Epidemic (TCE) programme has operated in 12 of Namibia’s 14 regions for the past 20 years. The TCE programme engages communities to address the HIV epidemic by working in close cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Social Services to provide HIV testing, TB screening and associated retention in treatment support services to achieve the UNAIDS 95-95-95 Strategy for sustainable epidemic control. In 2024, over 99,000 people were reached with TCE activities.
TCE Namibia supports the national Elimination of Mother to Child HIV Transmission (eMTCT) programme by delivering home-based support to HIV positive mothers during pregnancy and after delivery until the baby turns 18 months old to ensure the baby remains HIV negative. In 2024, the TCE programme supported more than 3,800 mother-baby pairs.
In the presence of the global maternal health crisis, community cohesion is more important than ever to forge a positive path towards achieving Universal Health Coverage. It is the collective responsibility of people to ensure that mothers survive childbirth and see their children thrive. Humana People to People continues to engage communities, partners and governments to overcome challenges preventing women and children from accessing quality maternal healthcare.
