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Subnational inequalities have received limited attention in the monitoring of progress towards national and global health targets during the past two decades. Yet, such data are often a critical basis for health planning and monitoring in countries, in support of efforts to reach all with essential interventions. Household surveys provide a rich basis for interventions coverage indicators on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) at the country first administrative level (regions or provinces). In this paper, we show the large subnational inequalities that exist in RMNCH coverage within 39 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, using a composite coverage index which has been used extensively by Countdown to 2030 for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health. The analyses show the wide range of subnational inequality patterns such as low overall national coverage with very large top inequality involving the capital city, intermediate national coverage with bottom inequality in disadvantaged regions, and high coverage in all regions with little inequality. Even though nearly half of the 34 countries with surveys around 2004 and again around 2015 appear to have been successful in reducing subnational inequalities in RMNCH coverage, the general picture shows persistence of large inequalities between subnational units within many countries. Poor governance and conflict settings were identified as potential contributing factors. Major efforts to reduce within-country inequalities are required to reach all women and children with essential interventions.

Health facility data are a critical source of local and continuous health statistics. Countries have introduced web-based information systems that facilitate data management, analysis, use and visualisation of health facility data. Working with teams of Ministry of Health and country public health institutions analysts from 14 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, we explored data quality using national-level and subnational-level (mostly district) data for the period 2013–2017. The focus was on endline analysis where reported health facility and other data are compiled, assessed and adjusted for data quality, primarily to inform planning and assessments of progress and performance. The analyses showed that although completeness of reporting was generally high, there were persistent data quality issues that were common across the 14 countries, especially at the subnational level. These included the presence of extreme outliers, lack of consistency of the reported data over time and between indicators (such as vaccination and antenatal care), and challenges related to projected target populations, which are used as denominators in the computation of coverage statistics. Continuous efforts to improve recording and reporting of events by health facilities, systematic examination and reporting of data quality issues, feedback and communication mechanisms between programme managers, care providers and data officers, and transparent corrections and adjustments will be critical to improve the quality of health statistics generated from health facility data.