Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal, newborn and child mortality and adolescent fertility rates in the world.  This was worsened by the recent Ebola epidemic outbreak which negatively impacted the health care system. The government, as part of the post-Ebola recovery response, developed a national Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) strategy that prioritizes health systems strengthening, improving quality of RMNCAH service delivery, strengthening community engagement and involvement, and improving health information systems, research, monitoring and evaluation.

The Ministry of Health has set ambitious targets of reducing the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to 300/100,000, the under-5 mortality rate to 75/1000  and the neonatal mortality rate to 23/1000, and increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate to 35% by 2025. RMNCAH services in the country are coordinated by the MOHS from the Directorate of Reproductive and Child Health. There are various coordination platforms for RMNCAH services including the GFF-supported RMNCAH country platform, the RCH Technical Coordinating Committee (TCC), the Family planning TWG and the EmONC/ SRHR TWG which will be crucial in influencing policy and strategy changes informed   by data analysis findings.

The Countdown 2030 country collaboration provides Sierra Leone with an excellent framework for building national capacity in evidence analysis and evidence generation for monitoring progress of vital RMNCAH+N interventions. The project aims to enhance evidence to inform national and subnational reviews of progress and performance of the Sierra Leone’s RMNCAH+N strategic plan. Countdown supports in-country partners to undertake periodic analysis of available data, including household survey data or health facility survey data in addition to DHIS-2 data, to inform subnational and national tracking of progress and performance of the national plan and strategy for RMNCAH+N and related service delivery.

The Countdown collaboration will result in:

• Analytical synthesis of overall and specific analytical work by the country collaboration, presented at the Countdown annual meetings.
• An analytical report on the country transition in maternal and newborn health with a focus on place of delivery and its strategy implications (1 country report).
• Annual short synthesis reports on family planning and immunization coverage indicators.
• At least one paper in peer-reviewed journal.
• Special studies (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed) along the health system components as appropriate: e.g. policies, health financing, health workforce, infrastructure, health governance, etc.
• Presentations for country review and dissemination workshops.
• At least one dissemination-oriented product such as a policy brief or country statistical profile each year.