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Data for 2021

Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021

2021, as UN IGME’s 2025 release gives it · stored as published, never rewritten

The neonatal mortality rate is how many babies out of every thousand born alive die in their first 28 days. Most deaths in the first year of life happen in this first month, which makes it the measure most directly tied to care at birth — a skilled attendant, a clean delivery, warmth, and help with breathing and infection.

Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021 covers 200 countries on 3 measures. South Sudan is highest, at 39.482; San Marino is lowest, at 0.614. The middle country reads 8.992. Against 2020, 200 values changed (28 up, 172 down), the same countries are covered.

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Neonatal Mortality Rate · Data for 2021

HighestSouth Sudan

39.482

LowestSan Marino

0.614

Shaded by value in five groups of equal size, darkest at the lowest end.

01Position · derived

The table

Every country and every column of Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021, as published. UN IGME ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. “=” marks a shared position.

Showing 25 of 200 countries · select a heading to sort

Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021: every country, as published by UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME).
derived
1South SudanSSDEastern Africa39.48212.21257103.2910
2NigeriaNGAWestern Africa39.28433.9772745.5589
3PakistanPAKSouthern Asia38.88432.6249646.0306
4SomaliaSOMEastern Africa36.15416.3933280.4211
5AfghanistanAFGSouthern Asia35.60828.0822044.8728
6Guinea-BissauGNBWestern Africa34.15219.5244257.3865
7NigerNERWestern Africa33.93326.1927944.2878
8LiberiaLBRWestern Africa33.37626.9291740.8759
9Central African RepublicCAFMiddle Africa32.87124.4192744.2540
10ZimbabweZWEEastern Africa32.24526.0632639.7315
11ChadTCDMiddle Africa32.05621.4087347.1054
12GuineaGINWestern Africa31.34323.1697341.9230
13MaliMLIWestern Africa30.30025.5109135.7790
14LesothoLSOSouthern Africa30.21723.0917239.0750
15DominicaDMACaribbean30.10626.3620034.4291
16Sierra LeoneSLEWestern Africa29.86023.0866838.1536
17DjiboutiDJIEastern Africa29.05815.6698152.9497
18Côte d’IvoireCIVWestern Africa28.97623.4156435.5533
19BeninBENWestern Africa28.69222.2056436.6176
20Equatorial GuineaGNQMiddle Africa28.04113.0044154.1015
21EthiopiaETHEastern Africa27.55221.0518135.8403
22EswatiniSWZSouthern Africa26.37217.8165440.4482
23CameroonCMRMiddle Africa26.28519.7740934.8296
24MozambiqueMOZEastern Africa26.26821.4114232.5224
25Burkina FasoBFAWestern Africa25.12815.4945939.5565

02In 2021

At either end

The 5 countries at each end of the headline, then the highest and lowest on each other measure.

Highest

  1. 1South Sudan39.482
  2. 2Nigeria39.284
  3. 3Pakistan38.884
  4. 4Somalia36.154
  5. 5Afghanistan35.608

Lowest

  1. 200San Marino0.614
  2. 199Japan0.830
  3. 198Belarus0.875
  4. 197Singapore1.005
  5. 196Montenegro1.025

A higher value is the worse result. The middle country reads 8.992. “Shared” marks a value another country also holds.

Each measure’s ends

  • Lower bound (90% uncertainty)

    HighestNigeria33.97727

    LowestSan Marino0.15997

    Middle country: 6.21360

  • Upper bound (90% uncertainty)

    HighestSouth Sudan103.2910

    LowestJapan0.8639

    Middle country: 11.3504

032020 → 2021

Since 2020

  • +0 / −0countries joined / left
  • 200values changed, of 200 in both
  • 28 · 172rose · fell
  • 0unchanged

Rose most

Fell most

04Caveats

Read before you use

How values are stored

  • One year of the 2025 release

    Every year in this series comes from UN IGME’s 2025 release, recalculated on one method, so a change from one year to the next is not a revision. It can differ from what was first published for 2021.

  • Nothing missing

    Every one of the 200 countries has every column.

05The files

Download and cite

Licence in full

What this site changed: Reshaped to one row per country, with its ISO code; no value recalculated, rescaled or rounded. In full

Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO · what it allows, in plain words

Cite this edition

UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) (2021). Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021 [data set], describing 2021. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/neonatal-mortality/2021

0656 held

Other years