The United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, was originally created to provide relief for children in countries devastated by the destruction of World War II. After 1950, UNICEF turned to focus on general programs for the improvement of children's welfare worldwide, and in 1965, it was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for its humanitarian efforts. The organization concentrates on areas in which relatively small expenditures can have a significant impact on the lives of the most disadvantaged children in developing countries, such as the prevention and treatment of disease, child healthcare, malnutrition, illiteracy, and other welfare services.

The United Nations Children's Fund

Quality maternity care for every woman, everywhere: a call to action

Stillbirths : ending preventable deaths by 2030

The main forms of childhood malnutrition occur predominantly in children <5 years of age living in low-income and middle-income countries and include stunting, wasting and kwashiorkor, of which severe wasting and kwashiorkor are commonly referred to as severe acute malnutrition. Here, we use the term 'severe malnutrition' to describe these conditions to better reflect the contributions of chronic poverty, poor living conditions with pervasive deficits in sanitation and hygiene, a high prevalence of infectious diseases and environmental insults, food insecurity, poor maternal and fetal nutritional status and suboptimal nutritional intake in infancy and early childhood. Children with severe malnutrition have an increased risk of serious illness and death, primarily from acute infectious diseases. International growth standards are used for the diagnosis of severe malnutrition and provide therapeutic end points. The early detection of severe wasting and kwashiorkor and outpatient therapy for these conditions using ready-to-use therapeutic foods form the cornerstone of modern therapy, and only a small percentage of children require inpatient care. However, the normalization of physiological and metabolic functions in children with malnutrition is challenging, and children remain at high risk of relapse and death. Further research is urgently needed to improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of severe malnutrition, especially the mechanisms causing kwashiorkor, and to develop new interventions for prevention and treatment.

Severe childhood malnutrition

Introduction Community engagement has been considered a fundamental component of past outbreaks, such as Ebola. However, there is concern over the lack of involvement of communities and ‘bottom-up’ approaches used within COVID-19 responses thus far. Identifying how community engagement approaches have been used in past epidemics may support more robust implementation within the COVID-19 response. Methodology A rapid evidence review was conducted to identify how community engagement is used for infectious disease prevention and control during epidemics. Three databases were searched in addition to extensive snowballing for grey literature. Previous epidemics were limited to Ebola, Zika, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndromeand H1N1 since 2000. No restrictions were applied to study design or language. Results From 1112 references identified, 32 articles met our inclusion criteria, which detail 37 initiatives. Six main community engagement actors were identified: local leaders, community and faith-based organisations, community groups, health facility committees, individuals and key stakeholders. These worked on different functions: designing and planning, community entry and trust building, social and behaviour change communication, risk communication, surveillance and tracing, and logistics and administration. Conclusion COVID-19’s global presence and social transmission pathways require social and community responses. This may be particularly important to reach marginalised populations and to support equity-informed responses. Aligning previous community engagement experience with current COVID-19 community-based strategy recommendations highlights how communities can play important and active roles in prevention and control. Countries worldwide are encouraged to assess existing community engagement structures and use community engagement approaches to support contextually specific, acceptable and appropriate COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/5/10/e003188.full.pdf

Community engagement for COVID-19 prevention and control: a rapid evidence synthesis.

Box 1 The Global strategy for women's, children's and adolescents' health (2016-2030) Objectives of the global strategy: * Survive: end preventable mortality; * Thrive: promote health and well-being; and * Transform: expand enabling environments. Five drivers of change to achieve the objectives based on the global strategy action areas: * People: individual potential and community engagement; * Political effectiveness: country leadership, financing, accountability; * Programmes: health system, multisector, humanitarian, research and innovation; * Partnerships: Every Woman Every Child Partnerships, Including the Global Financing Facility, the United Nations and multilateral H6 partnership, Unified Accountability Framework and Independent Accountability Panel, Innovation Marketplace and other national, regional and global partnerships; and * Principles: country-led, universal, sustainable, human-rights based, equity-driven, gender-responsive, evidence-informed, partnership-driven, people-centred, community-owned, accountable, aligned with development effectiveness and humanitarian norms. The Global strategy for women's, children's and adolescents' health (2016-2030) provides a roadmap for ending preventable deaths of women, children and adolescents by 2030 and helping them achieve their potential for and rights to health and well-being in all settings. (1) The global strategy has three objectives: survive (end preventable deaths); thrive (ensure health and well-being); and transform (expand enabling environments). These objectives are aligned with 17 targets within nine of the sustainable development goals (SDGs),2 including SDG 3 on health and other SDGs related to the political, social, economic and environmental determinants of health and sustainable development. Like the SDGs, the global strategy is universal in scope and multisectoral in action, aiming for transformative change across numerous challenging areas for health and sustainable development (Box 1). (1) The strategy was developed through evidence reviews and syntheses and a global stakeholder consultation, (3,4) and draws on new thinking about priorities and approaches for health and sustainable development. (4) Particular attention was given to experience gained and lessons learnt by countries during implementation of the previous Global strategy for women's and children's health (2010-2015) (5) and achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs). (6,7) A five-year operational framework with up-to-date technical resources has also been developed to support country-led implementation of the global strategy. This framework will be regularly updated until 2030. (1,3) Evidence shows that progress is required across a set of overlapping and mutually reinforcing areas to improve the health, dignity and well-being of women, children and adolescents. (4,7,8) Key areas for action were set out in the first global strategy (2010-2015), including health financing; the health system and workforce; access to essential interventions and life-saving commodities; national leadership; and accountability. (5) Based on emergent evidence, sociopolitical and environmental changes and the SDGs, the current global strategy (2016-2030) includes new strategic areas, for example adolescent health; humanitarian and fragile settings; an integrated life-course approach to health recognizing the links across different stages; multisector approaches; and guiding principles such as universality, human rights, equity and development effectiveness. (1) Evidence indicates that countries can accelerate progress in health and sustainable development through integrated action within the health sector and across social, economic and environmental sectors. (7,9) For example, through investments across sectors, the Chinese government lifted 439 million people out of poverty between 1990 and 2015, reduced child and maternal mortality by over 80% and 72%, respectively, and raised secondary school enrolment to over 99%, with equal numbers of boys and girls enrolled. …

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8511940/file/8511942

The global strategy for women's, children's and adolesents' health (2016-2030) : a roadmap based on evidence and country experience

/pdf/the-global-strategy-for-women-s-children-s-and-adolescents-1kf7s2ennd.pdf

Hannah Sarah Dini

Papers

The global strategy for women's, children's and adolesents' health (2016-2030) : a roadmap based on evidence and country experience

The Global strategy for women's, children's and adolescents' health (2016-2030): a roadmap based on evidence and country experience.