In May this year, Kenya launched the Every Woman, Every Newborn, Everywhere (IWENE) Acceleration Plan with a clear and urgent commitment: no mother and no child should die from preventable causes.
Turning that promise into everyday reality requires far more than good intentions. It demands leadership, sustained investment, skilled healthcare workers, reliable equipment and supplies, functional referral systems that save lives when seconds matter, and unwavering accountability across every stakeholder in the health sector.
The numbers underline the scale of the challenge. On the second day of the Kenya Health Summit, held under the theme “Reform Delivered, Health as a Right,” First Lady Rachel Ruto took the stage to confront them directly.
“Kenya’s IWENE framework places maternal mortality at roughly 355 deaths per 100,000 live births and neonatal mortality at around 21 per 1,000,” she noted.
“These are not abstract statistics. Behind each figure is a mother, a newborn, a family that carries the loss forever, and a community that feels its weight.
Progress alone is not enough. What the country needs is measurable impact. As Goodwill Ambassador for Newborn Screening in Kenya, the First Lady said she is encouraged by the concrete steps already underway.
Under the IWENE Acceleration Plan for 2026–2028, the Ministry of Health is expanding maternal healthcare coverage through the Social Health Authority, investing in essential maternal and newborn commodities and family planning supplies, and recruiting and redeploying thousands more nurses and midwives.
On the first day of the summit, President William Ruto explained how the former Linda Mama programme, which focused primarily on the mother during delivery, has been expanded and transformed into Linda Jamii.
The new package is designed to provide comprehensive care from the start: prenatal services including routine clinical visits, lab tests, obstetric ultrasounds and nutritional supplements; delivery and surgeries; postnatal care with check-ups, immunizations and family planning; and support for the child and the entire household.
Thanks to the Social Health Authority (SHA), the President said, reimbursements paid by the government for normal deliveries have risen from Sh2,500 to Sh10,000, while those for assisted deliveries (caesarean sections) have been increased to Sh30,000 across hospitals.
“I made a commitment that we are going to make sure that every mother who gives birth, when they leave the hospital, they have diapers,” he said.
In her address, the First Lady reiterated that these commitments are already producing results on the ground. At Pumwani Hospital, strengthened systems and a relentless focus on quality care have driven maternal deaths to near zero.
In Kisii, a maternity team recorded an entire month without losing a single mother meaning a full month of families going home together rather than facing tragedy.
At Mwai Kibaki Hospital, community screening has reached more than 15,000 people, creating 15,000 opportunities to detect illness before it becomes irreversible loss. These practices, she said, prove that the Kenya we seek is achievable.
Her message was clear: The goal is to raise health services nationwide to a national standard where a mother’s access to quality care does not depend on her wealth, a newborn’s chance of survival is not determined by the county of birth, health workers are never sent into crisis without the tools they need, and families are never forced to choose between treatment and putting food on the table.
She called for quality healthcare grounded in lived experience for every Kenyan not just promises of the kind made in previous years.
“This is what moving from promise to practice means. It is the responsibility we share. Let us not be remembered as the generation that merely made commitments. Let us be the generation that kept them. Save the mother. Save the child.”
