• should have improved programmes to strengthen basic health care systems in
order to provide quality maternal and child health services;
• should have developed health centres and hospitals dedicated to children, and
should have ensured that all health centres and hospitals are child friendly;
• should have provided all children living with HIV with anti-retroviral treatment;
• should have prioritised the treatment and prevention of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria,
pneumonia and diarrhea, so as to reduce under-5 mortality;
• should have improved a minimum package of proven childhood interventions
based on successful strategies such as Accelerated Child Survival and Development
(ACSD) and Integrated Management of Childhood and Neonatal Illnesses (IMNCI)
as part of national health policies and plans, poverty reduction strategies and
health sector reforms;
• should have made insecticide-treated nets available to all children under five in
malaria-endemic areas;
• should have reduced the maternal mortality rate in their countries to below at
least 500 per 100 000 live births;
• should have improved access of women to attending antenatal care, resulting in a
significant increase in the percentage of women attending antenatal care;
• should have increased the number and accessibility of birth attendants and should
have sensitised communities to the benefits of birth attendants, so as to achieve
a significant increase in the number of pregnant mothers who are attended to by
health care workers during birth;
• should have allocated at least 15 per cent of the national budget to health, in line
with the Abuja and Dakar budgetary targets;
• should have set up a fully-functional health infrastructure equipped to deal with
children’s health concerns; States should ensure that the health infrastructure is
able to effectively respond to emergency situations such as the outbreak of Ebola
in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone;
• should be supporting communities, particularly by improving the conditions
giving rise to disease. Ministries of Health should play a leadership role in coordinating multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary interventions to address the
social determinants of health. The responsibility for action with respect to health
should rest with the highest level of government.
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