RWANDA CUT MATERNAL MORTALITY 27%.
Five years, a 27% decline, and a health system still pushing: Rwanda is pairing community care with faster records and referrals.
Rwanda's 2025 Demographic and Health Survey reports 149 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, down from 203 in 2020—a decline of about 27%. At the same time, the country is expanding smartphone-based community medical records to strengthen follow-up for mothers and children.
WHAT HAPPENED
Rwanda's latest Demographic and Health Survey puts the maternal mortality ratio at 149 deaths per 100,000 live births for 2020–2025, compared with 203 in the previous 2019–20 survey. That is a decline of roughly 27%, although the measure remains far above the Sustainable Development Goal of fewer than 70.
The progress sits inside a broader community-health system. UNICEF says community health workers are moving from stacks of paper registers to a Community Electronic Medical Records system that records pregnancies, follow-ups, referrals and child-health services on smartphones. The programme had expanded to 31,094 workers in 17 districts and was planned for nationwide coverage by the end of 2026. The survey measures the mortality change; it does not isolate digital records as the sole cause.
WHY THIS IS HOPESLOP
This is not a miracle gadget story. It is the slower, sturdier kind of progress: local health workers, better records, earlier follow-up, skilled care and a national system learning how to keep more mothers alive. The remaining gap is serious. So is the measured improvement.
ORIGINAL SOURCENational Institute of Statistics of RwandaRead the original report
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