This year’s Countdown to 2030 Country Annual Meeting will convene representatives from 36 African countries to complete country-level analyses that will renew the focus on the health needs of African women, children and adolescents.
“We are delighted to host the Countdown Initiative’s annual meeting and to contribute to this important effort to promote efficient data use, cross-country learning, and collaboration,” said Dr. Getachew Tollera, Deputy Director General of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute. “Countdown’s country collaboration in Ethiopia has built a valued partnership that has informed important discussions on how best to improve the health system.”
After months of remote collaboration, the facilitators and country teams will meet in Addis Ababa from June 29 through July 3 to work intensively on a series of analyses that will be used to inform policy and program decisions in their respective countries.
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“Over the past two decades, Countdown has shaped the global conversation on measurement, equity, and accountability for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health,” said Dr. Cheikh Faye, project director for Countdown to 2030 and director of the African Population and Health Research Center’s West African office. “Countdown has consistently pushed the global health community and national decisionmakers to look beyond national averages and ask who is being left behind, why, and what must change.”
One of the key advances at last year’s annual meeting was greater automation of data analysis through the Shiny app within R statistical computing software. A team of researchers and programmers have worked to improve the software during the past year; the updated Countdown Data Suite is open source and available online.
The meeting also creates an opportunity for Countdown fellows to present their work. Countdown fellows participate in training workshops during the week prior to the annual meeting.
Countries sending representatives to this year’s meeting are: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana. Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Angola, Benin, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Namibia, South Sudan, Togo, The Gambia, Botswana, Burundi, and Eswatini.
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