Stakeholders in the health sector have inaugurated a Regional Think Tank aimed at accelerating innovation and coordinated action to improve maternal, newborn, child, nutrition and health (MNCH&N) outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa.
The Regional Think Tank, unveiled in Abuja, brings together leading academics and health experts from across the region and derives its mandate from global and continental frameworks to which Nigeria is a signatory. These include Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP), the Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) Strategy, and other multi-country implementation frameworks.
Stakeholders said the establishment of the body has become imperative as Africa remains significantly off track to meet its MNCH&N targets, with less than five years to the 2030 SDG deadline. They cited estimates indicating that sub-Saharan Africa recorded about 201,205 maternal deaths in 2023 alone, largely concentrated in West, East, Central and Southern Africa.
Speaking on the scale of the challenge, Prof. Hadiza Galadanci, a member of the Think Tank and Executive Director of the Africa Centre of Excellence for Population Health and Policy, noted that nearly a quarter of maternal deaths are linked to postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), a largely preventable condition when proven interventions such as E-MOTIVE are implemented at scale.
In a statement issued after the meeting, the Think Tank also expressed concern over persistently high newborn mortality in the region, with more than one million newborn deaths recorded annually, alongside stillbirths that remain a major public health challenge. It further noted that malnutrition accounts for nearly 45 per cent of under-five deaths, compounding risks to child survival.
“These overlapping challenges underscore the urgent need for coordinated, evidence-driven and scalable action,” the communiqué said.
According to the stakeholders, the newly established Regional Think Tank will coordinate engagement at regional and national levels to support the scale-up of E-MOTIVE, while providing a platform for dialogue on effective pathways for expanding other high-impact MNCH innovations across Africa.
They said the overarching vision of the body is to accelerate large-scale implementation of proven interventions and avert thousands of preventable deaths. The Think Tank is also expected to address persistent challenges in MNCH&N programming, including fragmentation, uneven adoption of innovations, policy–practice gaps, weak financing mechanisms, limited cross-country learning and poor performance monitoring systems.
The inaugural meeting drew participants from Africa Centres of Excellence in Nigeria, Guinea and Senegal; academic institutions including Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Nairobi and University of Rwanda; civil society groups such as White Ribbon; implementing partners including the Centre for Communication and Social Impact, Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria, Pathfinder International, TA Connect, SCiDAR and the Clinton Health Access Initiative; funders such as the Gates Foundation; and private sector representatives, including Ferring Pharmaceuticals.
Participants represented all sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa and formally endorsed the Think Tank’s governance structure, comprising a Steering Committee, a dual-chair arrangement to ensure Anglophone and Francophone representation, and a Secretariat to coordinate implementation, learning and stakeholder engagement.
