In this talk, Dr Desire Habonimana will take us through the maternal and newborn health sphere in Burundi and how the country is committed to address maternal and newborn mortality with unprecedented political and stewardship resolve. He will focus on the government initiative to provide quality care for emergency maternal and newborn complications which started in 2017 and is backed by many partners and local stakeholders to i) examine the readiness and performance of this initiative, ii) its empirical impact on mortality as well as its sustainability likelihood and, iii) use the human resources lens to develop investment proposals that could nudge the country’s effort.