The United Nations Population Fund envisions a world where every pregnancy is planned, every childbirth is safe, and every young person can reach their full potential. Achieving this goal depends on ensuring access to quality-assured maternal and newborn health (MNH) commodities, which play a vital role in reducing preventable deaths. A recent technical brief highlights their importance and outlines UNFPA’s efforts to strengthen their availability, financing, and delivery systems.
Despite the existence of effective solutions, preventable maternal and newborn deaths remain a major global challenge due to gaps in access to essential health commodities, limited financing, and weak health system readiness. The brief emphasizes UNFPA’s expanding role beyond contraceptives, including procurement, market shaping, and supply chain strengthening for life-saving MNH products. These efforts contribute to the organization’s Strategic Plan 2026–2029, particularly its goal of ending preventable maternal deaths. Access to these commodities is also a central focus of UNFPA’s “Start with Her” Strategy for Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn Health and Well-Being 2025–2030, which promotes policy reform, equitable healthcare access, and the empowerment of women and girls supported by robust data systems.
The urgency of this work is underscored by alarming statistics. In 2023, more than 260,000 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, while in 2024, approximately 2.3 million newborns died from preventable conditions in the earliest days of life. These outcomes are driven in part by systemic gaps, including limited access to essential medicines such as uterotonics and magnesium sulfate. In many low- and middle-income countries, up to half of haemorrhage-prevention medicines are estimated to be substandard or falsified, highlighting the need for stronger regulatory systems and improved quality control.
UNFPA is working closely with governments to address these challenges by strengthening national regulatory frameworks and supporting global and regional harmonization efforts. Between 2021 and 2025, the organization procured more than US$101.4 million worth of MNH commodities to support national supply plans and humanitarian programmes. This procurement increasingly includes a broader range of postpartum haemorrhage medicines and devices. To ensure long-term sustainability, UNFPA also promotes innovative financing approaches such as the UNFPA Supplies Match Fund, Bridge Financing Facility, Third Party Procurement services, and the Commodity Accelerator, which help mobilize domestic resources and reduce supply chain risks.
Aligned with the Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere (EWENE) initiative, UNFPA’s strategic priorities focus on closing systemic gaps in access and delivery. The organization aims to expand domestic financing for essential commodities, accelerate innovation through market-shaping efforts, and strengthen resilient and climate-smart supply chains. It also emphasizes improving regulatory systems and healthcare provider readiness to ensure that quality-assured, life-saving commodities reach women and newborns when and where they are needed.
This technical brief serves as a guide for governments, development partners, and donors seeking to improve access to maternal and newborn health commodities. It also highlights how stakeholders can leverage UNFPA’s procurement expertise, financing tools, and partnership platforms to advance maternal and newborn survival worldwide.
