During the UNA-Rockies UN-Day celebration, Maile Gonshak covered her experience with her advocacy project. Maile’s advocacy project touched on the state of maternal and newborn health in South Sudan, using WHO and UNFPA data. Her slides show a maternal mortality ratio of around 692 per 100,000 live births and about 60% of births occurring without the attendance of a skilled person. She outlines the main risks to mothers and to the newborn and the gaps in both antenatal and postnatal care. She goes on to describe how the conflict, displacement, looting of health facilities, the destruction of roads, and food insecurity all have the effect of cutting people off from care, with a particular focus on Jonglei State in 2026
