Project profile — Essential Health and Nutrition Services for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

• Africa, regional (90.00%)
• Asia, regional (10.00%)

• Basic health care:
Basic health care (12220) (10.00%)
Basic nutrition (12240) (80.00%)
Health personnel development (12281) (10.00%)

• Gender equality (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (principal objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project aims to promote the integration of micronutrients into existing country systems along the continuum of care. It is designed to work in partnership with others to address maternal, newborn and child health through providing essential health and nutrition services. Working through existing health systems to identify optimal delivery mechanisms, the Micronutrient Initiative (MI) aims to provide support to strengthen those systems that need it most. The objective is to deliver therapeutic zinc in conjunction with oral rehydration therapy to reduce child mortality and illness due to diarrhea; to deliver vitamin A supplements to reduce child mortality; to increase production of ready-to-use therapeutic foods to treat cases of severe acute malnutrition; and to deliver iron and folic acid to avoid anaemia at term among pregnant women. Working with other partners, MI also aims to implement initiatives to improve antenatal care, care at birth, and postpartum and newborn care.

N/A

Results achieved at the completion of the project include: (1) approximately 20 million children 6-59 months received two doses of Vitamin A supplements annually through routine health contacts, contributing to averting the death of 50,000-100,000 children aged 6-59 months over the duration of the project; (2) 26.3 million zinc treatment tablets and 1.8 million pouches of low-osmolality rehydration salts (LO-ORS) provided to children under-five, contributing to treating 45.6 million episodes of childhood diarrhoea; (3) 1.1 million children reached for screening and prevention of acute malnutrition and 16.5 million pouches of micronutrient powders for the treatment of acute malnutrition supplied in three countries due at least in part to MI support; (4) 16.2 million women received any IFA supplements in part due to MI support, which contributed to averting 343,000 cases of anaemia; (5) 200,000 pregnant women and newborn were reached with a package of health and nutrition intervention including antenatal care visits and micronutrient supplementation, safe delivery in the presence of a skilled birth attendant, post-partum and newborn care; and (6) 65,000 health workers were trained in administering zinc and LO-ORS for childhood diarrhoea and 43,900 frontline workers were trained in all components of IFA programmes with MI’s support.

• Proactive disclosure