Country Profiles
The Countdown country profile presents in one place the best and latest evidence to enable an assessment of a country’s progress in improving reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) and achieving MDGs 4 and 5. Each profile presents the most recent available information on selected demographic measures of maternal, newborn, and child survival and nutritional status, coverage rates for priority interventions across the continuum of care, and selected indicators of equity, policy support, human resources, and financial flows. Missing values for certain indicators, or estimates that are more than five years old, indicate an urgent need for concerted action to increase data collection efforts, so that evidence is available to help policy-makers and their partners assess progress and prioritize actions in the effort to reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality.
The most current Countdown country profiles were published in June 2012 in Building a Future for Women and Children: The 2012 Report. Earlier in 2012, abbreviated one-page profiles, customized to showcase the core indicators selected in 2011 by the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, appeared in Accountability for Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival: An update on progress in poor countries. Full, two-page Countdown country profiles were previously produced as part of the Countdown reports published in 2005, 2008, and 2010.
In order to provide in-country audiences with a clear, detailed understanding of the data in the Countdown country profile, Countdown has also developed customized (and customizable) PowerPoint presentations for each of the 75 Countdown countries. These presentations, can be useful both as an introduction to the Country Countdown process and as a way of introducing policy makers, media, advocates, and other stakeholders to a set of essential data on the country’s current situation with regard to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health.
In addition, Countdown’s Equity Working Group in 2010 and 2012 produced detailed equity profiles for many of the Countdown countries. These profiles include systematic breakdowns of key coverage indicators by wealth quintiles, maternal education, sex of the child, urban/rural residence, and region of the country.
The coverage, equity, financing, and health systems and policies data and results used to construct the 2012 profiles are publicly available. For more information and to receive a copy of Countdown’s 2012 datasets, please contact the Countdown Secretariat at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
.
Countdown has produced profiles for the countries listed at left; all available profiles can be viewed by clicking on the country name.