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The State of Africa's Children 2008 - Child Survival

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Introduction

Child survival in Africa: Communities unite to find solutions

Every year, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) publishes The State of the World's Children, the most comprehensive and authoritative report on the world's youngest citizens. The State of the World's Children 2008, published in January 2008, examines the global realities of maternal and child survival and the prospects for meeting the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - the targets set by the world community in 2000 for eradicating poverty, reducing child and maternal mortality, combating disease, ensuring environmental sustainability and providing access to affordable medicines in developing countries.

This year, UNICEF is also publishing the inaugural edition of The State of Africa's Children. This volume and other forthcoming regional editions complement The State of the World's Children 2008, sharpening from a worldwide to a regional perspective the global report's focus on trends in child survival and health, and outlining possible solutions - by means of programmes, policies and partnerships - to accelerate progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

The State of Africa's Children 2008 highlights the need to position child survival at the heart of Africa's development and human rights agenda. It begins by examining the state of child survival and progress towards the health-related MDGs for children and mothers in each of the continent's five main subregions: Eastern, Central, North, Southern and West Africa. Although much of the report concentrates on Africa south of the Sahara, cases and analysis from North Africa are examined as well.

The report outlines five broad priorities that are required to accelerate progress and then seeks to examine each of these issues in depth, illustrating them with side panels that provide examples from the African experience. The priorities discussed chapter by chapter are:

- Focus on the countries and communities where the burden of child mortality is highest.

- Apply the lessons learned and evidence collated over the past century.

- Provide a continuum of care for mothers, newborns and children by packaging interventions for delivery at key points in the life cycle and according to their mode of delivery.

- Strengthen community partnerships and health systems, with a strong emphasis on results.

- Advance the joint international agency framework for child and maternal survival.

A call for unity permeates the report from beginning to end. The basis for action - data, research, evaluation, frameworks, programmes and partnerships - is already well established. The report concludes that it is time to rally behind the goals of maternal, newborn and child survival and health with renewed vigour and sharper vision, to fulfil the tenets of social justice and honour the sanctity of life - especially the life of the African child.