Developing countries lack vital registrations that are present in high-income countries. Because of the shortage of such essential information, translating policy into action and monitoring programmes to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths is difficult. As a follow-up to our paper, Maternal and Neonatal Mortality in South-West Ethiopia: Estimates and Socio-Economic Inequality, we developed, validated, and used community-based birth registration in a population of about half a million people in four woredas, or districts, in rural southern Ethiopia. The most important lesson we learnt is that it is possible to obtain high-coverage birth registration and measure maternal mortality in rural communities with trained community health workers…read more