Every Newborn Action Plan Now Available for Comments

The WHO recently released a draft version of the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) for public comment. The ENAP addresses progress toward improving newborn survival in recent years, along with persistent challenges for accelerating progress. It also notes the opportunities presented by growing global commitments to improve health across the continuum of care for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Once finalized, the ENAP will be presented at the upcoming World Health Assembly in May 2014. From the draft:

 The Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths is a roadmap for change. It sets out a vision and proposes a goal and targets to end newborn deaths from preventable causes. Five guiding principles and five strategic objectives are at the core of the plan. The action plan is based on evidence and considers the main causes on newborn mortality and effective interventions to prevent and manage these. It builds on the intrinsic links between maternal and newborn health and promotes state-of-the-art knowledge of effective delivery approaches for the interventions and innovations to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage. The plan is also informed by a systematic review of the progress in addressing newborn survival globally in the last decade.

The announcement  notes that the ENAP will be linked with “specific plans and targets for maternal health” that are now under development. To join the online consultation on the draft ENAP, submit comments using WHO’s online form by February 28. In addition to the online consultation, a public discussion of the draft will be held on February 12, in Washington, DC. For further details, visit MCHIP’s event announcement.