Stakeholders Unveil Think Thank, Declare Action on Maternal, New Born Deaths, Others 

Stakeholders in the health sector and also academia have unveiled a Regional Think Tank aimed at accelerating innovations in maternal, newborn, child, nutrition and health (MNCH&N) outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa.

The think thank draws on the mandates of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, the African Union Agenda 2063, the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP), the Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) Strategy, and relevant multi-country implementation frameworks to catalyse coordinated acceleration of maternal, newborn, child, nutrition and health (MNCH&N) outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the stakeholders, with fewer than five years remaining to the end of the SDG timeline, Africa remains far from achieving its MNCH&N targets.

In 2023 alone, the region recorded an estimated 201,205 maternal deaths, concentrated in West, East, Central and Southern Africa.

“Approximately one quarter of these deaths were attributable to postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), a largely preventable cause when proven, life-saving interventions such as E-MOTIVE are implemented at scale,” the stakeholders said in a communiqué issued in Abuja in October.

According to the communiqué, newborn mortality remains unacceptably high, with over one million newborn deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa, while stillbirths persist as a major public health concern.

It noted that malnutrition contributes to nearly 45% of under-five deaths, further compounding risks to child survival.

“These overlapping challenges underscore the urgent need for coordinated, evidence-driven, and scalable action,” the communiqué said in part.

It said that the newly unveiled regional think tank (RTT) will coordinate engagement at regional and national levels to support the scale-up of E-MOTIVE, while serving as a platform for dialogue on effective pathways for scaling other high-impact MNCH innovations across Africa.

It read: “The overarching vision of the RTT is to accelerate implementation at scale and avert thousands of preventable deaths in the near future.

“The RTT responds to persistent challenges in African MNCH&N programming, including fragmentation, uneven adoption of proven innovations, policy–practice gaps, insufficient and unsustainable financing, limited cross-country learning, and weak performance monitoring systems. By convening regional expertise, the RTT aims to harmonise evidence, strengthen country pathways to scale, and improve implementation fidelity.”

Participants at the inaugural meeting of the think thank included representatives from the Africa Centres of Excellence (Nigeria, Guinea and Senegal); academic institutions (Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Nairobi, and University of Rwanda); civil society (White Ribbon); implementing partners (Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI), Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria (MWAN), Pathfinder International, TA Connect, SCiDAR, and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI); funders (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation); and the private sector (Ferring Pharmaceuticals).

They reflected representation from all sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa, with a wider pool of regional experts identified for future engagement.

The participants formally endorsed the RTT governance structure, including a Steering Committee, a dual chair arrangement ensuring Anglophone and Francophone representation, and a secretariat to coordinate implementation, learning and engagement.