KOICA Country Director, Doh Young Ah and UNICEF representative to Ethiopia, Gillian Mellsop sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together in a Maternal and Child Health (MCH) care project. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2015/Sewunet
Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) announces US$ 9 million support to UNICEF for “Community Based Newborn Care” today in the UNICEF Ethiopia office. This financial support will be implemented in five zones of SNNP, Oromia and Benishangul Gumuz regions of Ethiopia.
The agreement was signed by KOICA Country Director, Doh Young Ah and UNICEF representative to Ethiopia, Gillian Mellsop.
KOICA’s support aims to strengthen Ethiopian government’s efforts to improve maternal and newborn health in hard to reach areas building mainly on the Health Extension Program and the Primary Health Care platform. Over 150,000 pregnant women and their newborns will benefit from this generous support per year, reaching over 300,000 mother-baby pairs in the coming years.
In collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, Regional Health Bureaus, the Ethiopia Midwifery and Paediatric associations, NGOs, donors and academic institutions, the programme aims to scale up maternal and newborn care in 5 zones covering a total population of 4 million between 2015 and 2018. This programme will contribute to the national scaling up of evidence based high impact interventions to improve maternal and newborn health at community and health facilities levels.
The combination of innovative, evidence-based strategies and the government’s long legacy of leadership on maternal, newborn and child survival is yielding impressive results. Ethiopia achieved MDG 4 three years ahead of schedule by cutting under-five mortality from 205 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 68 per 1,000 in 2012. Ethiopia’s progress illustrates that countries can achieve dramatic declines in child mortality, despite constrained resources.
