Nepal's national program to reduce maternal mortality, which began under the country's Second Long-Term Health Plan covering 1997 to 2017 and was given formal shape by the National Safe Motherhood Policy the Nepali government adopted in 1998, aimed at increasing access to and use of maternal health services, strengthening the skills of maternal health providers, improving referral systems for obstetric emergencies, and raising public awareness of safe motherhood. Nepal's Ministry of Health and Population followed the 1998 policy with a National Safe Motherhood Plan covering 2002 to 2017, later revised in 2006 to explicitly incorporate newborn health, reflecting a broader shift in the country's programming toward combined safe motherhood and newborn health planning. The program's strategies have relied on expanding delivery services staffed by skilled birth attendants, emergency obstetric care, and coordinated action across Nepal's health, education and social welfare sectors.
Facts
Program StatusActive but still facing challenges: as of the cited review, Nepal's maternal mortality ratio stood at 239 per 100,000 live births, short of national and global targets 1 Sponsoring Body Target PopulationPregnant women and newborns in Nepal, particularly those facing financial and access barriers to skilled care 1 Health GoalAddress financial barriers to maternal and newborn health services, and expand institutional delivery and skilled birth attendance 1 Geographic ScopeNepal, national programme 1 Measured ResultsInstitutional delivery coverage rose from 8 percent in 1996 to 57 percent in 2016 1 Classification
Program KindHealth Education Program 1 Connections
Associated With
Delivers Practice
Entity-backed identity for the program-kind enum value this public health program already carries, resolved to a health practice by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The program-kind fact itself stays on the program unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Asia, found in there.
Sources
1. Improving Maternal Health Services through Social Accountability Interventions in Nepal (BMC Public Health, 2020)
BMC Public HealthPMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 1
The Government of Nepal (GoN) launched the Safe Motherhood Programme in 1997 to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes.
PMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 1 (Government of Nepal)
The Government of Nepal (GoN) launched the Safe Motherhood Programme in 1997 to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes.
PMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 1 (Nepal, national)
The Government of Nepal (GoN) launched the Safe Motherhood Programme in 1997 to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes.
PMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 2
The programme particularly placed emphasis on addressing financial barriers to access maternal and newborn health services, institutional delivery and skilled birth attendant (SBA) at each birth.
PMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 2 (mothers and newborns)
The programme particularly placed emphasis on addressing financial barriers to access maternal and newborn health services, institutional delivery and skilled birth attendant (SBA) at each birth.
PMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 4
Since then, there has been a considerable increment in the coverage of institutional delivery, from 8% in 1996 to 57% in 2016.
PMC/BMC Public Health article (2020), Background section, sentence 6
Despite the intense effort of the programme, Nepal is still facing challenges to reduce maternal mortality rate (MMR) as per the national and global target; the statistics is 239 per 100,000 live births.
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