Health

• Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 70% of maternal deaths.
• 37 countries affected by conflict or fragility account for 64% of maternal deaths.
• 4.9 million children died before age five in 2024, including 2.3 million newborns. That is
  one child every six seconds.
• Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 58% of under-five deaths.
  If current trends hold, 27.3 million children will die before age five between 2025 and
  2030.

Most of these deaths are preventable with skilled birth attendants, clean delivery, vaccines, antibiotics, and nutrition treatment. In conflict zones and remote villages, clinics are destroyed, understaffed, or out of medicines, and a woman in labor may need to travel for hours. Each maternal death also puts the surviving children at higher risk of malnutrition, dropping out of school, and orphanhood, which links this section directly to your sponsorship work.