Accelerating Newborn Health in Humanitarian Settings

In 2020, IAWG launched the secretariat for the Accelerating Newborn Health in Humanitarian Settings Initiative to fast-track preparedness and response efforts to scale up good quality maternal and newborn health care, and improve newborn health and well-being in humanitarian and fragile settings

The Initiative will focus on an integrated and comprehensive approach to implementation and implementation science. It will follow the leadership and guidance of WHO, the Global Health Cluster, and IAWG to inform global partners on how to operationalize known high-impact practices in fluid humanitarian contexts. It will support the full scope of the nexus, integrating newborn health into each stage of the transition between humanitarian and development. In recognizing the importance of the mother-newborn dyad, this hub will work to align, where appropriate, and otherwise dually promote, the agendas of the maternal and newborn health communities, while also strengthening linkages and synergies with partners throughout a life-course approach. The International Rescue Committee was selected as the host for Initiative after a competitive bid process. An IAWG Senior Maternal and Newborn Health Advisor was onboarded in October 2020.