Saving Children through Behavior Change:  Religions in Action

This initiative will work to reduce preventable deaths of children under-five by engaging religious leaders across diverse faiths to be effective drivers of behavior change.  The signatories of this commitment will help mobilize and equip religious leaders within their networks as agents of ten behavior changes vital to child survival.  The Center for Interfaith Action and Religions for Peace are leading the effort, and are joined by organizations such as Saddleback Church, Catholic Relief Services, Islamic Relief, American Jewish World Service, and many others.  These groups will develop relevant training modules and tools to help mobilize and equip religious leaders from diverse faith traditions around this initiative.  Successful implementation of this commitment will empower individuals and communities to demonstrably improve the wellbeing of millions of children around the world.

For more Information, please visit: www.apromiserenewed.org

Saving Mothers, Giving Life

Saving Mothers, Giving Life (Saving Mothers) was launched with the goal of supporting countries where women are dying at alarming rates during pregnancy and childbirth to aggressively reduce maternal mortality.  A partnership between the U.S. Government, the Norwegian Government, Merck for Mothers, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Every Mother Counts, Saving Mothers intends to help mothers during labor, delivery, and the first 24 hours postpartum – the period when an estimated two out of every three maternal deaths and nearly half of newborn deaths occur.  Work is beginning in countries where maternal mortality rates are disproportionately high, starting in districts in Uganda and Zambia.

The goal of Saving Mothers is to support countries to reduce maternal deaths by up to 50 percent in targeted districts in resource-limited countries.  Saving Mothers will develop models of quality maternal health services through district health network strengthening to achieve maximum sustainable impact; galvanize the American public to create a domestic constituency to support saving mothers’ lives around the world; and engage new public and private partners around the world to leverage expertise and co-invest in saving mothers. 

mPowering Frontline Health Workers

USAID and the mHealth Alliance have joined forces to form an innovative three-year public-private partnership called mPowering Frontline Health Workers.  The partnership brings together a powerful group of influential and imaginative organizations to accelerate the use of mobile technologies by frontline health workers to help end preventable child deaths in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The mHealth Alliance, serving as the partnership secretariat, will harness the resources and expertise of this multi-stakeholder coalition to strengthen the capacity of frontline health workers to effectively deliver high quality maternal and child health services by using mobile technology and creative multimedia digital health content.  USAID and the mHealth Alliance are joined by founding members UNICEF, Frontline Health Workers Coalition, Qualcomm, Vodafone, Intel, MDG Health Alliance, GlaxoSmithKline, Praekelt Foundation and Absolute Return for Kids.

For more information, please visit www.mhealthalliance.org

Declaration on Scaling Up Treatment of Childhood Diarrhea and Pneumonia

Harnessing the resources, expertise, and innovation of the public and private sectors, signatories to the “Declaration on Scaling Up Treatment of Childhood Diarrhea and Pneumonia” commit to working together in new ways to accelerate progress toward ending preventable child deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia in the highest burden countries.  The Declaration creates a platform for partners to align technical and financial resources to scale up use of oral rehydration salts (ORS) and zinc for diarrhea, and amoxicillin for pneumonia, for maximum impact.  Use of these low cost, life-saving interventions has the potential to save over two million children’s lives every year.  In support of this Declaration, the Zinc Alliance for Child Health – an alliance that includes Teck Resources Ltd., the Micronutrient Initiative, and the Canadian International Development Agency – will allocate $15 million to support the national scale up of zinc and ORS in the highest-burden countries.  In addition, McCann Health, one of the world’s largest marketing communications companies, commits $5 million of in-kind resources and technical assistance to support the design and implementation of marketing campaigns to increase awareness of and demand for ORS and zinc – a critical barrier to ensuring universal use of these products.  Signatories to the Declaration include the U.S. and Canadian governments, UNICEF, WHO, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the MDG Health Alliance, Teck, the International Zinc Association, and McCann Health, along with a number of implementing partners.  A copy of the Declaration and more information on the commitments can be found at www.apromiserenewed.org and www.usaid.gov. 

Survive and Thrive: Professional Associations, Private Sector and Global Scholars Saving Mothers, Newborns and Children

Survive and Thrive: Professional Associations, Private Sector and Global Scholars Saving Mothers, Newborns and Children aims to improve the quality of facility-based maternal, newborn, and child health services in 24 focus countries.  Several organizations – the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Nurse Midwives, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Johnson & Johnson, Laerdal Global Health, and Save the Children – have signed on to the partnership, initiated by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Survive and Thrive will “twin” members of U.S. professional health care associations with in-country professional association members to encourage learning and development through a peer-to-peer and partnership approach.  This effort  also seeks to mobilize and equip senior volunteer members from U.S., international, and national professional associations to strengthen the skills of health workers and champion maternal, newborn, and child health programs in low and middle income countries. In addition, the alliance will nurture emerging leaders in global health by creating Global Health Fellows, a new kind of internship opportunity for newly graduated clinicians. Fellows will have an opportunity to learn in-country, alongside leading experts from U.S. and in-country professional associations, to nurture a passion for global health, and go on to become teachers themselves, building the skills of future clinicians.

Helping Babies Breathe

The Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) global development alliance is a public-private partnership of USAID, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Save the Children, Laerdal Global Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Johnson & Johnson, and the Latter Day Saint Charities to reduce neonatal mortality by increasing the availability of newborn resuscitation during birth. The Alliance seeks to support countries in expanding high quality resuscitation services as part of a broader package of essential newborn care.  The Alliance offers evidence-based training, high quality, affordable resuscitation equipment, and technical assistance to support countries in their efforts to improve coverage and quality of newborn resuscitation services as part of national efforts to reduce newborn mortality.  Since its inception in June 2010 through March 2012, the alliance mobilized $23 million, trained about 70,000 health providers and provided about 50,000 resuscitation bags and masks in 34 countries. Over the next three years HBB aims to move from pilot to scale in 10 countries.

Saving Lives at Birth

Saving Lives at Birth—a partnership leveraging the collective resources of USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and DFID—seeks innovative prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in poor, hard-to-reach communities around the time of childbirth. 

Now in its second call for innovative solutions, the partnership received more than 500 submissions from almost 60 countries.  Sixty-five finalists will advance to the final stage of competition at the DevelopmentXChange in Seattle, WA.  These 65 innovators come from all around the world. Almost half are from outside the U.S. and a quarter from low-and middle-income countries. Their innovations span science and technology, service delivery, and demand creation—addressing the critical barriers women in developing countries face in accessing life-saving interventions. Maternal and neonatal mortality remains a significant problem globally, with the majority of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. The first call for applications resulted in the selection of the 24 most promising solutions to accelerate substantial and sustainable progress against maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths at the community level. 

Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and USAID are pleased to announce the launch of a joint program called Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) Health.  PEER Health will provide small grant awards to developing country researchers in low income GHI countries who collaborate with USAID missions and NIH supported scientists around country specific strategic health priorities.  The focus of the first round of PEER Health is child survival in support of the Call to Action to end preventable child deaths, emphasizing the improved implementation of integrated biomedical, behavioral, social and public health interventions to reduce causes of morbidity and mortality among young children.  The most vulnerable populations within low income countries – the poorest quartile, children outside family care, and HIV+ children – are of particular emphasis for this solicitation.    The PEER Health program hopes to accelerate progress towards the GHI country health goals by addressing critical issues in implementation and scale-up of health interventions and through leveraging the capacity and investments of global health research at NIH.   PEER Health will be managed by the National Academies of Sciences and the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) will oversee the review of the Child Survival Grants.   An RFA for the first round of the program will be posted on the Academies website on June 22, 2012.