The purpose of the database is to provide reliable data on the progress made by members towards their Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA), Abuja Call and other commitments in line with the mandates of the Social Affairs department.

African Health Stats is a tool for member states to engage with the AUC on their MPoA and Abuja Call data and progress. Importantly, it provides vital evidence for the AUC to influence and motivate policy makers to take action on health challenges in the continent. It is powerful way of sharing experiences, best practices and lessons learnt.

Data Sources

The data for each indicator on African Health Stats are generally published by the UN agency, or UN inter-agency group, which holds responsibility for global monitoring of the indicator. This varies by indicator. One exception includes data about the implementation of AMRH initiative, which is derived from the African Union. Please refer to ‘Data Source’.

African Health Stats uses data from the UN sources because such data are internationally comparable and it is the mandate of those agencies to prepare such data and monitor progress internationally. In some cases, the UN agency has made adjustments to the data in order to make national data internationally comparable, for example they may adjust national estimates to account for differences in survey design, the extent of potential underreporting, and the definition of what is being measured (e.g. maternal deaths). This means that at times there may be discrepancies between national and international estimates. Individual countries may prefer to instead rely on national figures for national monitoring. For uniformity, AHStats uses only international estimates of the UN agencies in data visualisations.

Showing data values

Where nationwide surveys have taken place over two calendar years, data values in African Health Stats are reported from the most recent year; for example, data from a 2014-2015 survey are reported as 2015.

Where data are given in original sources for more than one-year periods, the upper year is shown in African Health Stats; for example, for life expectancy at birth for babies born between 2000 -2005, we display the value under the upper year of the five-year period, that is 2005.

For value that are proportions (%), all values are presented rounded to whole numbers when the values are over 1%. For values less than 1%, these are presented to one decimal place, unless otherwise stated.