This year's Countdown to 2030 Annual Meeting was held in Kigali, Rwanda, from April 22 to 26, entitled “Producing reliable national and subnational health statistics with a focus on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition”. The workshop was organized by the Countdown to 2030 in collaboration with the African Population Health Research Center, University of Rwanda and Global Financing Facility, bringing together over 200 researchers, stakeholders, and experts from 25 countries from sub-Saharan Africa and global level experts.

The main objectives of the workshop were:

1. Support country analysts to develop a set of national and subnational estimates for key RMNCAH and nutrition indicators, including gender and equity, using a five-year time series of health routine data through 2023,
2. Strengthen skills of the country teams in the analysis of health facility and related national and subnationaldata,
3. Develop and share different ways of communicating results from health facility and related data analysis
4. Enrich country-led monitoring of progress by supporting the development and implementation of comparable methods
   to estimate coverage from health facility data and other sources,
5. Support to 25 countries in Africa to strengthen their own analysis of coverage and equity.

 

The ICEH delegation was composed of Professor Aluisio Barros, Fernando Wehrmeister, Cauane Blumenberg, Leonardo Ferreira and Franciele Hellwig, which were responsible for coordinating the equity sessions and provided direct support to Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi, as well as other countries. Following a sucessful week of hard work, each country was able to analyze their own health facility data and put together a chartbook that will serve as a base for each country's report for dissemination.

The Countdown Annual Meeting served as a reaffirmation of the global commitment to improving maternal, newborn and child health by fostering collaboration and facilitating knowledge exchange among participants, the meeting underscored the importance of joint actions in order to achieve a better future for women and children worldwide.