At Women Deliver 2013, Countdown presented six well-attended conference sessions. Links to slide presentations, where available, are provided below:
Accountability for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival: The 2013 Countdown to 2015 Report and Country Profiles
Countdown’s 2013 accountability report, highlighting core indicators selected by the Commission for Information and Accountability, was launched at Women Deliver 2013. Session speakers discussed new Countdown results and their implications for Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, and for catalyzing progress and ensuring accountability.
MODERATORS: Jennifer Requejo, Countdown to 2015 and Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, and Mickey Chopra, UNICEF and co-Chair of Countdown to 2015
PRESENTERS:
Zulfiqar Bhutta, Aga Khan University, Pakistan
Jennifer Bryce, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Cesar Victora, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil
Tessa Wardlaw, UNICEF
Building the RMNCH Evidence Base: Improving Tools to Track Coverage
Better measurement of intervention coverage, through improved household surveys, contributes to stronger policies and programs and fosters accountability for delivery of essential reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) care. This Countdown to 2015 session presented new research, much of it included in a PLOS Medicine collection published in May 2013, on measuring coverage for interventions across the RMNCH continuum of care, and the importance of tracking coverage indicators for global monitoring.
MODERATORS: Jennifer Bryce, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Tessa Wardlaw, UNICEF
PRESENTERS:
Jennifer Bryce, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Cynthia Stanton, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’
Özge Tunçalp, WHO
Allisyn Moran, USAID
Jennifer Requejo, Countdown/PMNCH
Countdown to Equity: Identifying and Reaching the Hard-to-Reach
Targeted efforts to reach poor and underserved populations can improve progress toward achieving the health Millennium Development Goals. This Countdown to 2015 session presented new evidence that addressing health inequities — by socioeconomic status, gender, age, place of residence, and urban/rural differentials in coverage — drives progress towards universal coverage of key interventions.
MODERATOR: Cesar Victora, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil
PRESENTERS:
Cesar Victora, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil
Aluisio Barros, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil
Mickey Chopra, UNICEF (co-chair, Countdown to 2015)
Country Countdown: Accelerating National RMNCH Progress to 2015 and Beyond
Country Countdown processes, in-depth examinations of subnational health data enabling countries to assess progress and ensure accountability, are catalyzing action in multiple countries. At this session, Countdown to 2015 presenters shared lessons learned and showcased ongoing country initiatives to improve the use of evidence for decision making.
MODERATORS: Ann Starrs, Family Care International (FCI), and Elizabeth Mason, WHO
PRESENTERS:
Victor Mukonka, Copperbelt University School of Medicine, Zambia
Angela Mutunga, FCI-Kenya
Anuradha Gupta, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India
Joy Lawn, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children
Shams el Arifeen, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
- Note: More information on Country Countdowns, including slide presentations given at a capacity-building workshop conducted at Women Deliver 2013, can be found here.
Financing Progress: Paying for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health
Countdown to 2015 helps to hold governments and donors accountable by tracking the funding gap between current resources and actual investments needed to achieve RMNCH targets. This session highlighted new research on donor aid for reproductive health, domestic health financing in African and Asian countries, and lessons learned about performance-based financing strategies.
MODERATOR: Peter Berman, Harvard School of Public Health
PRESENTERS:
Justine Hsu, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Ravi Rannan-Eliya, Institute for Health Policy, Sri Lanka and Asia-Pacific National Health Accounts Network
Geir Lie, WHO
Has health expenditure for women and children scaled up or scaled down in low and middle-income countries? — An analysis of reproductive health and child health subaccounts
Dan Kraushaar, Management Sciences for Health, and Henrik Axelson, PMNCH
- Performance-based financing (PBF) to accelerate progress towards MDGs 4 and 5: What have we learned?
Mother’s Health, Newborn’s Health: Investing with a Double Benefit
The health of women and that of their newborns are integrally linked, making investments in maternal and newborn health all the more cost-effective. This Countdown to 2015 session discussed the impacts and costs — in terms of preterm births, stillbirths, newborn survival, and maternal health — of access to quality pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal care.
MODERATOR: Joy Lawn, London School for Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Saving Newborn Lives/ Save the Children
PRESENTERS:
Her Excellency Christine M. Kaseba-Sata, First Lady of Zambia
Joy Lawn, London School for Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Saving Newborn Lives/ Save the Children
Hannah Blencowe, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Note: Additional presentations from this session will be posted here soon. For more information, visit www.globalnewbornaction.org.