Health workers and citizens in low-income countries do not have access to relevant, reliable healthcare knowledge that is vital to reduce child mortality and morbidity.

Child Healthcare Information for All (CHIFA),  which launched in November, seeks to bridge this gap and  addresses the information and learning needs of those responsible for the care of children in developing countries, including mothers, fathers and family caregivers as well as health workers.

CHIFA is a global campaign, professional network and discussion forum which links academic centres with grassroots health workers. Its remit includes children’s rights to health and healthcare, and the social determinants of health.

CHIFA is free and open to anyone with an interest in child health. Join here: www.chifa.org

CHIFA members get to:

• Join a community of more than 3300 members from 140 countries dedicated to meeting the information and learning needs of healthcare providers
• Find out about funding and training opportunities, websites, new publications
• Raise awareness about their work
• Share their experience and learn from others 

CHIFA is administered by the Global Healthcare Information Network, the International Child Health Group of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the International Society for Social Pediatrics and Child Health

Join the  first Global Health Compassion Round, on 'Compassion in humanitarian settings' on 4th December 2019 at 10:30 EST (16:30 GMT+1).

Register here

This first event, hosted by the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics (FACE) at the Task Force for Global Health and the Global Learning Laboratory (GLL) will feature Heather Howard, Senior Global Health Advisor at Alight (formerly American Refugee Committee).

The Global Health Compassion Rounds  are a safe space to discuss topics on compassion within health service delivery. They will take place quarterly, and include an introduction on the day's topic, a reflection from a global health expert and an open discussion.

For questions,  email face@taskforce.org

The 1st Africa Regional Forum on Experience of Care is taking place in Dakar, Senegal, 21 to 23 October. Organized by the French Fund Muskoka, the Forum seeks to ensure that national policies and strategies for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health include experience of care and a commitment to eradicate all forms of violence in health facilities.

Leaders, decision-makers, health professionals, development partners and civil society organisations are taking part in the three day event. They will share information on women's, newborns' and children's experience of care in health facilities, knowledge and know how on the efficiency of the tools and methodologies used to assess experience of care, countries' experience in improving quality of care, and the tools they used to institutionalise quality improvement, and the steps to implement interventions that will lead to a better experience of care.

The Quality of Care Network will present its system approach to improving quality of care at facility, district and national level, and orient participants on the most recent tools to implement that approach.

Read more: https://ffmuskoka.org/forum-regional-dakar-octobre

Photo: Midwife Susan Acom, in Apeitolin Health centre II, Uganda checks a mother who during her antenatal care visit to the facility. ©UNICEF/Adriko/2018 

The Global Respectful Maternal Care Council, convened by the White Ribbon Alliance, launched Respectful Maternal Care Charter: the universal rights of women and newborns.

The charter and new set of materials build on the 2011 charter and are designed to help educate, inform and advocate for all women to receive respectful care during pregnancy and childbirth.

The updated charter clarifies and clearly articulates the rights of women and newborns in the context of maternity care provided within a healthcare facility. It addresses the issue of disrespect and abuse toward women and newborns who are utilizing maternal and newborn care services and provides a platform for improvement by:

• Raising awareness for women’s and newborns’ human rights guarantees that are recognized in internationally adopted United Nations and other multinational declarations, conventions and covenants;
• Highlighting the connection between human rights guarantees and healthcare delivery relevant to maternal and newborn healthcare;
• Increasing the capacity of maternal, newborn and child health advocates to participate in human rights processes;
• Aligning women’s demand for high-quality maternal and newborn care with international human rights law standards;
• Providing a foundation for holding governments, the maternity care system and communities accountable to these rights;
• Supporting healthcare workers in providing respectful care to women and newborns and creating a healthy working environment.

Download the Respectful Maternal Care Charter

Download the social media toolkit for advocates

A WHO-led study, published in the Lancet reveals that more than a third of women experienced mistreatment - physical or verbal abuse, or stigma or discrimination - during childbirth. Women who were younger and less educated were most at risk, suggesting inequalities in how women are treated during childbirth.  The study was conducted in twelve facilities in Ghana, Guinea, Myanmar and Nigeria. 

Read the study 

Read the WHO story

Related: Listen to the BBC Health Check on the report's findings:  Abuse of women in childbirth

A new report on maternal mortality, released by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division, estimates a worldwide number of 295 000 maternal deaths in 2017. This figure represents a 38% reduction since the year 2000 an average reduction of just under 3% per year.

For women, this means that the global lifetime risk of maternal mortality – the risk that a 15-year old girl will die eventually from a maternal cause – was approximately 1 in 190 for 2017, nearly half of the level of risk in 2000.

The report presents internationally comparable global, regional and country-level estimates and trends for maternal mortality between 2000 and 2017. It highlights the inequalities between the world’s least developed countries and the rest of the world.

Download the report

Read the WHO web story

Zambia hosted a major global conference on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in health care facilities in September in Livingstone.

Four of the Quality of Care Network countries - Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi and Tanzania - were among the 21 countries that detailed their efforts and commitments to implementing the core elements of the 2019 World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on WASH in health care facilities. Check their commitments here.

See also a video that WHO and UNICEF released recently a  to inspire action around the 2019 WHA resolution on WASH in health care facilities.

What Women Want - a global advocacy campaign to improve quality maternal and reproductive healthcare for women and girls and strengthen health systems - released its global survey findings. The survey asked directly 1.2 million women and girls, in 114 countries, what their demands for maternal and reproductive healthcare were.

Here are their top twenty demands:

Download the findings

Learn more: www.whatwomenwant.org