USAID’s global flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) introduces and supports high-impact sustainable reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health interventions to prevent child and maternal deaths with a focus on 27 high-priority countries, one of which is Ethiopia. MCSP supported the rollout of the Government of Ethiopia’s Community-Based Newborn Care (CBNC) program from October 2014-December 2017. Locally, the MCSP project was known as Newborns in Ethiopia Gaining Attention (NEGA).
The project covered 12 zones (133 woredas) and two “special woredas” in four regional states of Ethiopia: Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), representing 86% of the country’s total population. The overall goal of the MCSP CBNC/NEGA project was to contribute to the reduction of newborn morbidity and mortality in Ethiopia through capacity-building to provide high-impact services at both the community and the primary health care unit (PHCU) level.
The MCSP NEGA program was designed to achieve its goal through three intermediate results (IRs):
- IR 1: Improved community maternal and newborn health (MNH) practices and care-seeking behaviors.
- IR 2: Increased provision of high-impact, quality newborn care services in the community.
- IR 3: Strengthened supportive systems for provision of newborn health care.
A baseline survey was carried out in 2015 to obtain the benchmarks for key MNH indicators, and an endline survey was completed 2 years later to determine progress against project objectives. The surveys collected information on knowledge of women ages 15–49 regarding MNH, MNH care-seeking behavior and practices, coverage of key MNH services—antenatal care (ANC), essential newborn care, delivery by skilled birth attendants, and postnatal care (PNC), among others—and capacity of the community for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) collective action.