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Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths: A Promise Renewed

Background

In June 2012, the Governments of Ethiopia, India and the United States of America convened the Child Survival Call to Action in Washington, D.C. This high-level forum brought together over 700 representatives from government, civil society and the private sector to rejuvenate the global child survival movement. The forum built on the success of the many partnerships, structures and interventions that already existed within and beyond the field of health.

Following the Child Survival Call to Action, 178 governments — as well as hundreds of civil society, private sector and faith-based organizations — signed a pledge vowing to do everything possible to stop women and children from dying of causes that are easily avoidable. We now call this commitment A Promise Renewed.

Since 2012, over 30 countries have deepened their commitments by launching sharpened country strategies for child survival, further accelerating global progress for children.

Those national strategies are based on the core principles advocated by A Promise Renewed:

1. Fostering political commitment to end preventable child mortality by implementing sharpened country strategies for child survival and publicly committing to ambitious, measurable goals
2. Strengthening public accountability through improved monitoring, data and use of tools such as scorecards to track progress and identify priorities for action
3. Mobilizing societies and communities to take action on child survival and to hold governments accountable for their commitments.

Accelerating progress on child survival beyond 2015

Since its initiation, A Promise Renewed has focused on promoting two goals: first, keeping the promise of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 – to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015; and second, continuing the fight beyond 2015, until no child or mother dies from preventable causes.

To achieve these goals, partners that support A Promise Renewed have committed to five priority actions:

1. Increasing efforts in the countries facing the greatest challenges on under-five mortality
2. Scaling up access to underserved populations everywhere
3. Addressing the causes that account for the majority of under-five deaths
4. Increasing emphasis on the underlying drivers of child mortality, such as women’s education and empowerment
5. Rallying around a shared goal and using common metrics to track progress.

By focusing on these priority actions and core principles, countries are already achieving progress, bending the curve on child mortality and moving towards a world where no mother or child dies from a preventable cause. As we begin the work of the Sustainable Development Goals, maintaining this momentum must be our top priority.