3.1.2 Proportion of Births Attended by Skilled Health Personnel

Target 3.1: By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Custodian Organization: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
Tier Classification: Tier I

To facilitate the implementation of the global indicator framework, all indicators are classified by the IAEG-SDGs (Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goals Indicators) into three tiers on the basis of their level of methodological development and the availability of data at the global level, as follows:

Tier I: Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, and data are regularly produced by countries for at least 50 per cent of countries and of the population in every region where the indicator is relevant.

Tier II: Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, but data are not regularly produced by countries.

Tier III: No internationally established methodology or standards are yet available for the indicator, but methodology/standards are being (or will be) developed or tested.

Source: United Nations Statistical Division

Definition: Percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel (generally doctors, nurses or midwives) is the percentage of deliveries attended by health personnel trained in providing lifesaving obstetric care, including giving the necessary supervision, care and advice to women during pregnancy, labour and the post-partum period, conducting deliveries on their own, and caring for newborns. Traditional birth attendants, even if they receive a short training course, are not included.

Rationale: Having a skilled attendant at the time of delivery is an important lifesaving intervention for both mothers and babies. Not having access to this key assistance is detrimental to women’s health and gender empowerment because it could cause the death of the mother or long lasting disability, especially in marginalized settings.

Source: United Nations Statistical Division

Data Source: Data for this indicator was primarily collected from the United Nations Statistics Division’s Open SDG Data Hub. National level data from the UN Statistics Division is compiled by the respective custodian for the SDG indicator, unless otherwise noted. To learn more about the data used in this portal, visit the about page.

Data is accurate as of October 31, 2018.