Brazzaville - Mali and Sierra Leone have been selected as new members of the WHO Global Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights Initiative. The announcement was made at the end of May to the two countries.

Initiated in January 2019, the SRHR Initiative aims to help recipient countries in the AFRO region (Benin, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and South Africa) to reduce maternal mortality through strengthening the health systems to address SRHR challenges and contribute to achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). It places emphasis on eliminating maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion, which is of importance in the African Region.

"Although the official rate of maternal death due to unsafe abortion is 13%, reality goes well beyond this figure," says Dr. Leopold Ouédraogo, Project Coordinator in the WHO African Region.

The initiative also focuses on strengthening the health system, including enhancing governance, building human resource capacity, availability and accessibility to essential medicines, analyzing the responsiveness of health services and monitoring maternal deaths, and health information. These different areas are taken care of, as they all contribute to improve maternal, newborn and child health.

Participating countries are selected based on well-defined criteria, including the high rate of maternal mortality, the high rate of unsafe abortions, the clear political will and commitment to end the preventable maternal deaths.

Scheduled for an initial four-year term, the SRHR Initiative began with four countries in the African Region, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and South Africa. The initiative includes also other WHO Regions (EMRO and SEARO), with Pakistan, Nepal and India as focus countries. The project intends to progressively include other countries.

After only one year of implementation, the Initiative has enabled some countries to develop policy briefs and advocacy for SRHR (including on integration of SRHR into UHC/National Health Insurance/PHC) and capacity building, through the national dissemination and orientation of WHO guidelines on Safe Abortion and contraception. Focus countries also updated and disseminated SRHR guidelines, protocols, operational tools, training manuals with a focus on safe abortion and family planning, conducted assessments on national capacity for training in SRHR, strengthened Ministry of Health coordination of SRHR partners and initiatives, strengthened multi-sectoral partnerships to enhance SRHR including guidance documents for operationalization of national abortion laws.

Additionally, through the SRHR Initiative, the WHO African Region now has a regional scorecard to monitor progress in Sexual and Reproductive Health. The Regional Office (AFRO) has successfully conducted several regional workshops to orient stakeholders on WHO SRHR guidelines and recommendations for safe abortion, contraception and self-care and successfully developed a regional SRHR priority research agenda. AFRO has also successfully established the regional RMNCAH Technical Advisory Group which will commence its duties in 2020 to advise the Region on how to support progress towards ending preventable maternal and child deaths and improve sexual and reproductive health and rights.

By joining the SRHR Initiative, the health authorities of Mali and Sierra Leone are putting their countries on the path to improving maternal and neonatal health and eliminating preventable maternal and neonatal mortality.