Child and Maternal Mortality
in Islamic Countries
128
poor and low-educated and in rural areas, deliver at home. It is not surprising that maternal
health care has the highest-level of inequity among all health indicators. Poor, less educated and
rural women have less access to maternity care, and they are more likely to die from maternal
complications. Improving access to high-quality MNCH care and reducing inequity will be
critical for reducing maternal and child mortality globally.
Many of the high-impact MNCH interventions are often considered low hanging fruits. However,
both supply and demand side barriers affect their utilization. There are no short-cut
prescriptions for removing these barriers and realizing the SDG-3 targets. The countries and
development partners must invest with long- and short-term plans and strategies for achieving
these goals. We have provided a set of recommendations for developing such plans for achieving
universal coverage of MNCH care and reducing maternal and child mortality for the OIC
countries.
Although this report focuses on OIC countries, we consider that many of the findings are equally
informative for other countries with similar socio-economic development.