USAID Impact Photo Credit: Nancy Leahy/USAID

Archives for Sub-Saharan Africa

Community-based Approach Prevents HIV in Children and Keeps HIV+ Mothers Healthy in Bondo, Kenya

Posted by  on Friday, May 24th 2013     

During the month of May, IMPACT will be highlighting USAID’s work in Global Health. From May 18-27 we will be focusing on an AIDS-Free Generation. 

Bondo, Kenya — Babies Gabriel and Mary are among Kenya’s AIDS-free generation.

Although their mothers are HIV-positive, the two babies were born free from the virus that causes AIDS thanks to a team of determined community health workers who recruited their young mothers into a project funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The project, carried out by USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), which is led by Jhpiego, connects women to—and keeps them enrolled in—high-quality health care to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother-to-child.

Beatrice, holding Gabriel, and Grace, with baby Mary, listen as CHW Jane Akoth (right) counsels them on their health choices. Photo Credit: USAID Global Health

Mothers Beatrice and Grace are grateful they met community health worker Jane Akoth. After recruiting them into the project, Akoth saw both women regularly, through home visits or appointments at the clinic, to ensure that they and their pregnancies remained healthy. “After I delivered my baby, Jane advised me on how to take care of my child by exclusive breastfeeding for six months and to continue taking my medication,” adds Grace, the mother of baby Mary. “I want Jane to continue doing what she is doing so that she can help other mothers.”

In Africa, HIV and AIDS affects women and mothers at a greater rate than men, creating a heavy disease burden among families. When parents die of the disease, children are left orphaned or given to the care of relatives who may not have the means to raise them. Pregnant and breastfeeding women who are infected with HIV also run the risk of transmitting the disease to their children.

The experience of Beatrice and Grace shows that the transmission of this life-threatening virus is indeed preventable. The success of the MCHIP project was due in part to an innovative strategy that was originally developed to improve immunization of children, which links pregnant women to care and keeps them enrolled.

More than 300 community health workers like Jane are working in Bondo District to keep the next generation alive and healthy. Since 2010, coverage through this project has expanded so that women in the most hard to reach areas are being connected to health services. As a result, the percentage of expectant mothers going to all four antenatal care visits increased from 25 percent to 41 percent in two years, and the percentage of HIV-exposed infants who were tested for HIV increased from 27 percent to 78 percent.

We know that follow-up by community health workers is key to saving lives—getting mothers into care, keeping them there, and providing them with the lifesaving medications that they and their children need.

 

Women’s Involvement in Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention

Posted by  on Friday, May 24th 2013     

During the month of May, IMPACT will be highlighting USAID’s work in Global Health. From May 18-27 we will be focusing on an AIDS-Free Generation. 

Kawango Agot works to scale up voluntary medical male circumcision in Kenya. Photo Credit: USAID

 

I work as part of a team dedicated to scaling up voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) in Kenya. In 2007-2008, clinical trial results confirmed that VMMC has the potential to dramatically reduce men’s risk of acquiring HIV from their female partners. While Kenya and 13 other African countries have made great strides in rolling out VMMC (Kenya has circumcised about 500,000 men since VMMC was endorsed by the World Health Organization as an effective intervention against HIV), there has been a glaring gap that many of us have not paid attention to: how to get women fully on board as stakeholders. For all practical purposes, we as VMMC program implementers run our business as if this is solely a man’s affair. We forget that involving female partners is critical to turn this procedure into a successful intervention for HIV prevention.

In 2010, a small, unique group of young women in the lakeside city of Kisumu, Kenya, blew my mind away. I was getting perturbed with evidence coming out of VMMC research studies indicating that approximately one-third of men were resuming sex before completing the recommended six weeks of abstinence, and that most of these men (approximately 70%) were either married or cohabiting. In my attempt to encourage women to look beyond the usual topics surrounding VMMC (for example, that it reduces their risk of cervical cancer if their male partners are circumcised), my attention was drawn to some young women who accompanied their husbands/boyfriends for circumcision at one of our VMMC service sites. I called some of the couples for a casual chat, and was amazed at how perceptive they were in making decisions about their health.

 

The young women described how they discussed VMMC with their partners ahead of going for services – benefits, risks, fears, and interestingly, sexual abstinence. Each one of them narrated how, ahead of time, they agreed on sleeping arrangements that would enable them to observe the 42 days of abstinence. Some separated beds, others separated rooms, some slept on the same bed, but fully clothed, some simply dressed unattractively or avoided bodily contact or seductive talk while others took time off to visit with their families. Many reported to have successfully abstained for the recommended period, and attributed this to the fact that their partners involved them in their decision to be circumcised. As a bonus, most also tested for HIV together.

These women deserve praise – ordinary women who have the courage to step out into the extraordinary and claim their space in VMMC, who recognize that their partner’s health is their health too.  To such, I bow in respect… and call on many more to come forward and claim their space in VMMC – it is your right!

Follow USAID for Global Health (@USAIDGH) on Twitter and use #GHMatters to join in the conversation.

 

Building Capacity: Racking Warehouses in Ethiopia

Posted by  on Wednesday, May 22nd 2013     

During the month of May, IMPACT will be highlighting USAID’s work in Global Health. From May 18-27 we will be focusing on an AIDS-Free Generation. 

Ethiopia has the second largest population in Africa, and the thirteenth largest in the world. The current population of 84 million is expected to reach 120 million by 2030, and 145 million by 2050. Ethiopia will play a large role in meeting the global goal of putting 15 million people on HIV treatment by 2015 and in helping create an AIDS-free generation. To do so, the population of Ethiopia needs reliable and consistent access to medicine. At present, however, the ability to acquire medicine is limited due to challenges of access, supply, distribution and cost.

The Ethiopian government is undertaking a bold initiative to ensure that medicinal supply and access are available throughout the country. A major challenge is reaching a population whose majority lives in rural areas. Through a series of centralized and regional hubs, this initiative aims to serve thousands of health centers all over the country and overcome the hurdle to reaching patients. Achieving this aim is a complex undertaking, which is becoming increasingly more so as the diversity and volume of medicines regularly expands.

The Supply Chain Management System (SCMS), a project of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) administered by USAID, has stepped in to support this nation-wide initiative. At ten warehouse sites across Ethiopia, the physical warehousing capacity has greatly increased due to the introduction of a warehouse racking system. Warehouse racking allows for vertical storage without damaging stacked products due to weight.

An Ethiopian warehouse, before. Photo credit: SCMS

The racking system enables improved material organization, as products are stored and sorted by rack location. This ensures that short shelf-life products can be located and distributed in a timely manner. It also helps prevent stockouts as regional hubs can respond faster to need requests. Thus, warehouses become more efficient in terms of space utilization, organization and loss-prevention.

Improved warehouse distribution also enhances the ability of warehouses to reduce and prevent product expiry and handle emergency situations, such as product recalls. Furthermore, a better ability to respond to the supply and demand of the population, as well as reduce loss, facilitates for a reduction in product cost.

In Adama, for example, the warehouse capacity was increased by 35 percent, to 880 pallets (the platforms that boxes of commodities sit on for shipping and storage) with the introduction of racking. Organizational improvement is evident, which facilitates for improved cost-efficiency as the products can be stored, located and distributed in a more systematic manner. That, however, is just the beginning.

An Ethiopian warehouse after support from SCMS, USAID and PEPFAR. Photo credit: Jiro Ose, SCMS

The government, with support from PEPFAR and the Global Fund, is constructing ten new – and larger – warehouse facilities to greatly increase warehouse capacity.

SCMS will outfit these new warehouses and expand upon existing facilities. When Adama’s new warehouse is complete, and racked, the pallet capacity will increase from 880 to 5,160. Across the ten sites, the existing pallet capacity of 6,039 will increase to 27,007.

The outfitting of racking in warehouses is only one contribution of many mechanisms that SCMS has provided to enhance and support the Ethiopian government in their aims of providing reliable and consistent access of medicine throughout the country. SCMS is not only meeting the needs of today, but planning for the needs of tomorrow.

Follow USAID for Global Health (@USAIDGH) on Twitter and use #GHMatters to join in the conversation.

Harvest, Meet Market: How a New Fund Will Accelerate Agricultural Infrastructure in Africa

Posted by  on Friday, May 10th 2013     

Since 1964, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has worked with African countries to develop their economies and progress socially.

This week, with AfDB and the Government of Sweden, we launched a first-of-its-kind effort to expand this progress and growth. The Agriculture Fast Track will encourage private sector investment in agricultural infrastructure projects to advance food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so, it supports Africa’s agriculture transformation agenda.

Incentivizing investment in agriculture

Historically, the private sector hesitated to invest in agriculture in Africa—and for good business reasons. Investing in agriculture has inherent risks, including drought, crop and livestock diseases and fluctuating crop prices. Agriculture projects can have high start-up costs because systems and facilities must be developed before they can begin making a profit. Given these challenges, it can be difficult for African countries and their development partners to create lasting improvements in food security.

That’s why we are so excited about renewed efforts to tackle these challenges in order to catalyze private investment that can spur economic growth while reducing hunger and undernutrition. Following the lead of African nations, efforts like the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition have coupled tough regulatory policy reforms with private investment commitments in agriculture. African leadership has driven these efforts forward, with governments undertaking transparent market-oriented reforms that encourage private investment and reduce barriers to agriculture-led economic growth.

USAID, the African Development Bank, and the Government of Sweden launch Agriculture Fast Track Fund for infrastructure projects in Africa. Photo credit: USAID

Bridging the last mile

But the last mile linking farms to markets still needs to be strengthened.

Smallholder farmers in Africa are some of the poorest and hungriest people in the world. And while the world has worked to reach them with the tools, skills and knowledge they need to increase their crops, farmers also need infrastructure.

Agriculture infrastructure reduces the risks farmers face—for instance by providing irrigation so farmers don’t rely solely on erratic rainfall to water their crops. It also provides ways for farmers to get their harvests to markets (and buyers, and ultimately to tables) quicker, like on nicely paved roads, and helps preserve harvests longer, using electricity and modern preservation and processing facilities.

The Agriculture Fast Track addresses this challenge head on. It is the first and only fund exclusively focused on infrastructure for agriculture and food security. As a New Alliance deliverable aimed at addressing barriers to agricultural development, it defrays front-end development costs and risks the private sector is unwilling to shoulder alone.

Operationally, the Agriculture Fast Track will fund technical assistance for public and private sector organizations seeking to create agricultural infrastructure projects. By providing grants for activities like scoping assessments, feasibility studies, market analyses, and social impact investments, the Agriculture Fast Track will help create a pipeline of projects able to garner the private capital needed to start and complete them.

Learn more

Along with our colleagues at AfDB and the Government of Sweden, we’ve developed a variety of materials for you to learn more about Agriculture Fast Track and the vision we have for it.

Catching Mosquitoes, Not Fish: Returning Bed Nets to their Proper Use in the DRC

Posted by  on Monday, May 6th 2013     

During the month of May, IMPACT will be highlighting USAID’s work in Global Health. From May 1-10, we will be featuring the role that Science, Technology & Innovation plays in Global Health.

It is 1 p.m. in the village of Kavimvira. The sun is high over Lake Tanganyika, at the foot of the Mitumba Mountain, in scenic South Kivu. Frank Baraka has packed the bounty of the morning fishing trip and folded his nets, when his cell phone chimes to signal an incoming text message: : “Sleep every night under an Insecticide-Treated Net (ITN), to protect your family from malaria,” he reads out loud, amused, to his fishing companion.

Frank Baraka sewing a bed net that he will use as a fishing net. Photo Credit: USAID

“This is exactly the message my wife has been pounding at home lately,” Roger Amisi responds. “She says that she heard it at the ETL (Education-Through-Listening) meeting, with Nathalie, you know, the primary school teacher.”

Delaying his lunch, Frank hurries to Nathalie Niéla’s compound to find out about the messages.  ”Malaria kills children in our community,” Nathalie says. “Sleep under a net every night, to live safe from malaria,” she confirms.

This is the call to action of the Malaria 3+1 Campaign implemented by USAID’s Democratic Republic of Congo-Integrated Health Project (DRC-IHP), in partnership with C-Change. An estimated 140,949 Congolese from 194 villages were exposed to campaign messages on malaria awareness and prevention. In a country where only five percent of pregnant women receive proper preventive malaria therapy, and malaria accounts for nearly 40 percent of child deaths, prevention is a critical priority.

Nathalie is one of 37 women ETL facilitators recently trained in the DRC-IHP’s field office of Uvira.  ”Thanks to ETL, our husbands no longer use the nets to fish or to protect vegetable gardens,” she affirms proudly. “Nets now serve their purpose of protecting children and pregnant women from mosquito bites.”

ETL is one pillar of IHP’s Tuendeni-Kumpala Behavior Change Communication strategy which empowers communities to adopt health-seeking behaviors. Tuendeni-Kumpala which means “moving forward” in Swahili and Tshiluba (two local languages), is an integrated strategy in which ETL facilitators work in synergy with other innovative communication approaches such as mobile technology, to increase the reach and enhance the behavioral impact of project interventions such as malaria prevention and use of reproductive health services.

Through this partnership between USAID, DRC-IHP and C-Change, a total of 64,584 ITNs were distributed across Bukavu, Kolwezi, Uvira, and Kamina, supporting the effort to boost the number of people using insecticide-treated nets.  Campaign results from two health zones point to the value of ETL, in terms of actual ITN use. After four months, 89 percent of the 9,471 households exposed to campaign activities in Uvira slept every night under an ITN.  By contrast, 82 percent of the 12,965 households involved in Kamina (Katanga province) reported adoption of the preventive behavior. When the campaign was launched in June 2012, ETL was not yet rolled out in Kamina.

For the project’s communication team, the difference illustrates the powerful effect of ETL. “ETL truly shows results here,” said Donat Ngoyi, DRC-IHP Communication Expert in Uvira.  ”This approach will, no doubt, help us meet our malaria prevention and treatment goals.”

The DRC-Integrated Health Project (DRC-IHP) — a five-year USAID cooperative agreement led by Management Sciences for Health in partnership with the International Rescue Committee, and Overseas Strategic Consulting, Ltd — is strengthening the leadership and governance capacity of people working in the health sector to improve the access, availability, and quality of services within 80 target health zones.

Follow USAID for Global Health (@USAIDGH) on Twitter and use #GHMatters to join in the conversation.

NEWEST Rice Marks Latest Milestone

Posted by  on Friday, April 26th 2013     

This post originally appeared on the Feed the Future Blog. 

“Today, we have new tools and approaches that enable us to achieve progress that was simply unimaginable in the past: the eradication of extreme poverty and its most devastating corollaries, including widespread hunger and preventable child death.” – Administrator Shah in his 2013 Annual Letter

One such tool is genetic engineering.

To help leverage this and other advanced molecular tools for food security, Feed the Future partners from U.S. and international research communities and the private sector have teamed up to apply these tools to common challenges faced by millions of rice farmers throughout Africa.

Researchers in Uganda plant seeds in the first ever confined field trials of genetically engineered rice in Africa. Photo Credit: Jimmy Lamo, NACRRI

Their efforts are paying off. This month, for the first time in Africa, researchers in Ghana and Uganda planted confined field trials of genetically engineered rice.

The new variety includes a trait for increased nitrogen use efficiency, which helps the plant take better advantage of the scant nitrogen found in Africa’s often nutrient-poor soils. Soil nitrogen deficiencies limit yields on roughly 90 percent of the lands African farmers use for growing rice. The engineered variety could also promote responsible fertilizer use by improving the crop’s responsiveness to smaller doses of fertilizer.

The field trials are a major scientific milestone and mark the latest success in a vibrant partnership between USAID, international and national agricultural research institutions, private-sector biotechnology firms, and non-governmental organizations—a partnership that is not only generating improved rice varieties, but also enhancing African researchers’ capacity to regulate and execute advanced agricultural research.

The partnership coalesces around the NEWEST rice project, which aims to improve the productivity and sustainability of rice production across Sub-Saharan Africa by relieving key production constraints for African rice farmers. In addition to the soil nitrogen deficiencies that inspired the current field trials, saline soils also reduce rice productivity in Africa. Meanwhile, climate change is elevating drought risk across the continent.

Rice varieties that are nitrogen use efficient, water use efficient, and salt-tolerant (NEWEST) could therefore boost yields by up to 30 percent in many regions, increasing farmers’ climate resilience while also minimizing their use of fertilizer and water, reducing deforestation, and slowing expansion of cultivated lands.

As a complement to traditional breeding programs, biotechnology has developed powerful tools that could help meet these ambitious agricultural and environmental goals. To harness these tools and spur agricultural innovation, Feed the Future relies on an international, multi-sector approach:

    • As part of the NEWEST rice project, California-based Arcadia Biosciences donated the intellectual property to generate improved varieties and introduced the new traits into NERICA rice, an important African variety.
    • The biotechnology firm then transferred these initial lines to the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia, which worked with Arcadia to conduct preliminary field evaluations and generate seed stocks of the most promising varieties.
    • Arcadia and CIAT then shipped the seed to research partners in Ghana and Uganda’s Agricultural Research Systems, who planted their confined field trials over the past month.
    • Throughout this process, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation coordinated activities across the partnership, helping to navigate intellectual property and biosafety regulations in the two countries and ensuring that the confined field trials adhered to legal and environmental standards.

As the field trials progress, Ghanaian and Ugandan researchers will identify which of the new, nitrogen-use-efficient rice lines perform best under local conditions. Water-efficient, salt-tolerant, and triple-stack rice varieties (which combine all three traits) are still under evaluation in California and Colombia and will be tested in subsequent field trials in Africa. The researchers then plan to optimize the best-performing lines through conventional breeding and introduce the improved traits into locally adapted, farmer-preferred rice varieties.

As part of a broad portfolio of agricultural research investments, this partnership highlights Feed the Future’s strategy to harness agricultural innovation to reduce global hunger, poverty, and undernutrition, while meeting the global challenges of food security in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner.

Increasing Access to Education in Northern Nigeria

Posted by  on Tuesday, April 16th 2013     

This blog is part of a series focused on USAID’s innovative approach to reaching Millennium Development Goal #2: Achieve universal primary education. The theme “Room to Learn” highlights programs and priority countries where access to education is now a reality.

Fourteen year-old Ammar Muhammed, born to nomadic parents in Northern Nigeria, is going to school. Not just any school, but a school for gifted children owing to his participation in a USAID-funded basic literacy program at his non-formal school in Nigeria’s northern Bauchi State two years ago.

Ammar in front of his school. Photo Credit: USAID

Forty-two percent of primary-age children in this country, about 10.5 million, are out of school. Less than a third of primary school children proceed to junior secondary school and even fewer go on to complete secondary school. The situation is worse in predominantly Muslim Northern Nigeria where primary school attendance and academic achievement are far below national averages. A recent USAID-funded assessment of reading skills in Hausa, the local language, in the Northern States of Bauchi and Sokoto found that about 70 percent of  P3 (third grade) pupils could not read a single word of a simple narrative text. In this region many students attend non-formal religious schools where the focus is on learning the Quran and Islamic values with no training in basic reading and math skills. In some schools male children (referred to as “Almajiri”) often leave very poor families to attend school and are encouraged to beg on the streets to pay for their care and instruction.

Through its Northern Education Initiative (NEI), USAID is working in the Nigerian States of Bauchi and Sokoto to strengthen state and local governments’ capacity to deliver basic education services by addressing key management, sustainability and oversight issues. To demonstrate to state governments that basic education systems can be strengthened through improvements in teacher training and instructional delivery, the NEI developed new activity-based training manuals, trained about 3,500 teachers, and monitored the delivery of reading and math instruction. Two hundred pilot schools were selected to participate in the program, 80 of which were non-formal Amajiri schools—40 from each state.

Children outside of school in Nigeria. Photo Credit: USAID/Nigeria

Ammar’s school was selected to participate in the pilot. He diligently applied himself to his studies and was one of 200 students from NEI’s 40 demonstration schools in Bauchi State to pass exams for entry to formal schools in 2011. Once admitted to Central Primary School, Gwaram, he was reassessed and placed in Class Five. His teachers were surprised to learn he was a student from an Almajiri school.  ”He performed better than other pupils that had spent six years in school and took first position in his class examination,” said Malam Usman Khalifa, head teacher at Central Primary School.

In 2012 Ammar took the Bauchi State Special Secondary School Examination for entry into one of the state’s three schools for gifted children. He passed with flying colors and is now a student at the Special Science Secondary School in Toro. He has now set a new target: to earn university admission. “I want to be a doctor, to help my people,” said Ammar.

 

 

 

Facilitating Economic Growth through Infrastructure and Trade

Posted by  on Friday, April 12th 2013     

Eric Postel is assistant administrator for the Bureau of Economic Growth, Education and Environment

Sub-Saharan Africa is now home to 11 of the world’s 20 fastest growing economies. Economic growth in the entire region is expected to be strong – between five and six percent – in the next few years, and it will be led by the private sector; foreign direct investment now dwarfs foreign aid in Africa.

Yet, a recent World Bank report noted that regional trade barriers are cost African countries billions of dollars in potential revenue every year. Trade among African countries makes up only 10 percent of the region’s total trade volume. In East Africa, it costs 50 percent more to move freight one kilometer than it does in the United States or Europe, and in landlocked countries transport costs can be as high as 75 percent of the value of the goods they are trying to export.

On March 29, I participated in an economic growth roundtable with the Presidents of Malawi, Senegal, and Sierra Leone and the Prime Minister of Cape Verde to discuss these challenges and to examine ways to strengthen trade and investment, enhance regional integration, and improve the four countries’ business environments.

The four African leaders called attention to a major impediment to trade and investment in Africa: poor infrastructure, which inhibits both regional and global trade.  That is why USAID is working with governments to assess and prioritize critical infrastructure needs.  For example, in South Sudan, USAID helped build a 192-kilometer-long Juba-Nimule Road, the largest infrastructure project ever built in South Sudan, and the young nation’s first paved highway. The road has reduced travel time between Nimule and Juba from eight hours to less than three, linking Juba with Uganda and providing the shortest, most efficient route to the Port of Mombasa in Kenya. The road has generated economic activities along the route, and created employment and training opportunities for South Sudanese communities, thereby enhancing stability.

Meeting with the four leaders allowed me to reaffirm USAID’s commitment to work with both the governments and private sector in all four countries to improve export readiness, and reduce the time and cost to trade.  In Cape Verde, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, USAID has helped establish Resource Centers to assist local businesses take advantage of the provisions of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which offers duty free entry for 6,400 products from qualifying African countries into the United States.

We are also supporting three regional Trade Hubs designed to help sub-Saharan African governments and businesses reduce the time and cost of trade, harmonize trade and regulatory requirements, and work directly with African firms to identify export opportunities. In Malawi, our Southern Africa Trade Hub has helped to streamline customs procedures and develop a national single window system, which allows traders to submit all required data into a single electronic system accessible to all border agencies. Systems like this one significantly reduce the time and cost of moving goods across borders and increase customs revenue.

We have also helped Malawi and Sierra Leone develop export strategies and stand ready to support strategy implementation and the crafting of similar strategies in Senegal and Cape Verde. When developed and implemented in consultation with the private sector, the strategies serve as an invaluable tool to facilitate trade and improve economic growth.

By working to reduce barriers to trade in African markets, USAID supports sustained growth in the region and improves bilateral trade and investment opportunities for both African and U.S. firms.

The Growing Movement to End Preventable Child Deaths

Posted by  on Thursday, March 21st 2013     

Yesterday at an event hosted by AEI and the Center for American Progress, USAID Administrator Raj Shah spoke about President Obama’s vision to end extreme poverty through innovation and partnership. His remarks mentioned an important corollary goal – the end of preventable child deaths. The first audience question commended the visionary Child Survival Call to Action held in Washington last year and asked about progress at country-level. Administrator Shah responded that the movement to end preventable child deaths is nothing short of extraordinary.

Administrator Raj Shah earlier this month in India at their Child Survival Summit. Photo Credit: USAID/India

Since the Call to Action, 172 countries have now signed A Promise Renewed pledge to accelerate declines in child deaths.  More than 400 civil society and faith-based organizations as well as over 2,000 individuals have also pledged support. Each signature represents a renewed commitment to give every child the best possible start in life.  Governments are leading the effort to convene policymakers, technical experts, and development partners in a concerted effort to scale-up high-impact strategies for maternal, newborn and child survival. Below are a few highlights of countries leading and how USAID is supporting this important work.
Bangladesh

USAID and other donors are supporting the Ministry of Health to develop an action plan to end preventable child deaths in Bangladesh, particularly at district level.  This plan will identify priority actions and benchmarks to reach the goal of no more than 20 deaths/1,000 live births by 2035, or earlier.  A technical advisory group has been convened to discuss evidence-based interventions that can be deployed in Bangladesh to bend the curve. This includes programs to address Pneumoccocal and Rotavirus vaccines, corticosteroids, clean cord care, child drowning and Kangaroo Mother Care, among others.  Given the fact that 60% of child deaths in Bangladesh occur within in the first 28 days of life, there is a huge need for post-natal monitoring to reduce stubborn neonatal mortality rates.

Burma

Building upon the Child Survival Call to Action, USAID recently launched a public private partnership: Survive and Thrive. This partnership will expand the coverage of quality and high impact maternal newborn services starting with essential newborn care, and link pediatricians, midwives, and obstetricians from American professional associations to peer associations in Burma to build capacity in service delivery. Survive and Thrive will partner with civil society and professional and educational institutions, work within the Ministry of Health’s health system, support the programs of the 3MDG Fund, and maximize synergy with community-based programs of existing partners.

Ethiopia

At the African Leadership on Child Survival meeting hosted by the Government of Ethiopia earlier this year, the consensus reached by over twenty African countries present was both significant and historic. The participating countries declared, in a consensus statement, that they are committed to developing and implementing country-led roadmaps that integrate ongoing efforts to accelerate progress to end preventable deaths among children by 2035, and reduce the mortality rate to below 20 per 1,000 live births in all African nations. Recently, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Namibia. Officials from Namibia are undertaking a study tour to review Ethiopia’s health extension program.

India

At India’s recent Call to Action, the Government of India launched the Reproductive Maternal Neonatal Child Health Adolescent health strategy (RMNCH+A), which serves as a roadmap for the States. India also released several guidance documents including implementation of newborn care as well as management of pneumonia and diarrhea. A National Child Survival Scorecard was showcased, and States were encouraged to develop their own scorecards and to monitor progress. USAID’s Maternal and Child Health Integrated Project (“MCHIP”) supported the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in organizing the recent India National Call to Action for Child Survival and Development, and USAID will continue to provide support in establishing quick response teams for Indian states with the highest child mortality that have committed to accelerating their efforts for child survival.

Indonesia

USAID supported a national newborn conference in Jakarta from Feb 26-March 1. The conference included international experts from India and the U.S. as well as representatives from the Indonesia’s Ministry of Health, key professional associations, academia, and district and provincial health leaders. This was the first such event in Indonesia focusing on newborn survival. Responding to Indonesia’s commitment to A Promise Renewed and the MOH’s call to accelerate progress toward the MDGs, this conference addresses one of the key indicators slowing achievement of MDG goal 4. DHS data from 2012 is now available and demonstrates no progress in newborn mortality since 2007. The rate remains at 19/1000 live births. Partners are committed to reducing this rate by 25% by 2017, in partnership with USAID, UNICEF and WHO, and an exceptionally strong collaborative relationship with the Ministry of Health.

Liberia

The Ministry of Health in Liberia is sharpening its child survival plan using evidence and aligning donors to support the plan.  There is great donor support and commitment to implementing the national plan through the alignment of programs. A launch for A Promise Renewed is being planned by the Government of Liberia. A steering committee led by the Government of Liberia and comprised of representatives from NGOs, house of representatives, representatives from different Ministries has been established and meets regularly to plan the launch event.  An expected key outcome of the launch is greater mobilization of support and resources at the counties, civil society organizations and community leaders around A Promise Renewed.

For more information about A Promise Renewed, please visit: apromiserenewed.org.

Video of the Week: Celebrating World Water Day 2013 in Senegal

Posted by  on Monday, March 18th 2013     

A USAID-funded dike in Senegal‘s Boli Valley has extended the rice growing season to nine months a year, and permitted recovery of hundreds of hectares of land for cultivation to help ensure food security in the region. USAID also provides seeds and financing to local farmers, including women, who make a significant contribution to sowing the land and maintaining the dike.

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