As the world transitions to achieving sustainable development goals, it is clear that Nigeria must accelerate efforts to improve outcomes for its newborns. This Nigeria Every Newborn Action Plan (NiENAP) sets forth specific actions necessary to achieve significant mortality and coverage targets by 2030. It lays out Nigeria’s vision of a country “with no preventable deaths of newborns and stillbirths, where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth celebrated; and women, babies, and children survive, thrive, and reach their full potential.”
The NiENAP presents a set of intervention packages aligned with the 10 key areas of the National Health Policy 2017–2021. The intervention packages follow a four-pronged approach of (1) promotion of facility-based deliveries at scale addressing equity issues, (2) strengthening of community-based interventions, (3) strengthening of facility readiness for providing quality care for the newborn, and (4) provision of quality care for the newborn with focus on labour, birth, and immediate care after birth during the first week of life. The document also defines a set of preliminary, national-level milestones and steps taken to identify core indicators that should be tracked to ascertain progress toward meeting targets.
The NiENAP is a concerted effort towards translating Nigeria’s commitments into meaningful change for newborns. The aim is that this document will serve as a framework for each of Nigeria’s 36 states and Federal Capital Territory – in collaboration with many stakeholders and partners – to develop their own action plans, adapting the NiENAP as needed to their unique contexts.