| 1 | less than 2% |
| 2 | 2% to 4.9% |
| 3 | 5% to 9.9% |
| 4 | 10% to 14.9% |
| 5 | 15% to 24.9% |
| 6 | 25% to 34.9% |
| 7 | 35% or over |
| 8 | No Data |
| 1 | < 5% |
| 2 | 5%-9.9% |
| 3 | 10%-14.9% |
| 4 | > 15% |
| 5 | No data |
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Births by Caesarean Section
What does it mean ?
This indicator shows the number of births by caesarean section relative to all births. Birth by caesarean section requires specialist health worker skills, an operating theatre and availability of specific drugs and medical products.
Why does it matter ?
All pregnancies are associated with risk and when medically justified, a caesarean section can prevent maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. However, because any surgery carries risk of complications, caesarean sections should not be performed unless it is medically required. According to the World Health Organisation, about 10-15 % of all births require delivery by caesarean section. As such, caesarean section rates lower than 10% indicates under-use and caesarean section rates over 15 % indicate over-use. Because birth by caesarean section requires specialist medical skills and health services, this indicators is sometimes used as a proxy indicator to measure the availability of quality of maternal health services in countries where data from health information systems and health facility surveys are limited.
How is it collected ?
Data on the percent of birth by caesarean section is usually derived from large scale, nationally representative surveys such as Demographic and Health (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), other national surveys. DHS/ MICS are household surveys where women are asked if they have given birth (usually in the last three or five years) and the circumstances surrounding the birth including if they had a caesarean section.
"The Increasing Trend in Caesarean Section Rates: Global, Regional and National Estimates: 1990-2014" Betrán, A., et al. PLoS One. 2016; 11(2): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743929/
Government Expenditure on Health in Africa
What does it mean ?
This indicator shows the level of government health expenditure relative to other government expenditures in a country. Government expenditure on health includes recurrent and capital spending by the government to improve the health status of the population and health services through public budgets, external borrowing, grants/donations and social or compulsory health insurance funds.
Why does it matter ?
Universal health coverage cannot be achieved without sufficient funds being allocated to the financing of health systems. This indicator informs us of the priority a government gives to funding health expenditures compared to other public expenditures in a country. How much a government should allocate to health expenditure depends on different factors and contexts. In 2001, Heads of State in African Union countries pledged to allocate at least 15% of their total government expenditure to health.
How is it collected ?
The preferred source of data for this indicator is a National Health Account, which is an internationally agreed method for collecting information about all financial flows related to health in a country. Where a recent National Health Account is not available, the WHO's health financing team collects similar information using technical contacts in-country and publicly available documents.
World Health Statistics 2014. http://apps.who.int/nha/database
