USAID, UNICEF determine to reduce child mortality

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), hosted the Behaviour Change Evidence Summit for Child Survival from June 3-4, 2013 to ensure everyone is doing what works best to end preventable child deaths and ensure healthy growth and development.

The Summit brought together global leaders to determine what is needed to change health-related behaviours in lower and middle income countries (LMICs) and reduce under-five mortality, a press release issued June 3, 2013 has said.

The summit built on Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed – a global movement, uniting a number of partners around the goal of ending preventable child deaths by 2035.

“For the first time in history, we have the available knowledge and technologies to reach the world’s most marginalized children with life-saving interventions,” said the release.

Organizations and ministries who signed the A Promise Renewed pledge have made great strides since the Call to Action, and will be able to apply the evidence from the Behaviour Change Evidence summit to further accelerate progress on newborn, child and maternal survival, the release added.

“We have the technology and know-how to change this brutal fact of life, “In the 1000 days leading up to December 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, new vaccines against diarrhea and pneumonia, bed nets for malaria, and nutritional supplements for pregnant women and young women, could save nearly 4.4 million children.  Life-saving tools must be widely accessed and properly used at the correct time. This requires a sustainable shift in health-related behaviours,” said Dr. Rajiv Shah, Administrator of USAID.

By Dorcas Appiah