Johannesburg – After over a year of work, the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) was officially launched on Monday, June 30 in Johannesburg during the third Partners’ Forum. In May, the Plan was adopted by the World Health Assembly in Geneva by all 194 member countries during succesful, albeit precarious deliberations.

The Every Newborn Action Plan aims to save three million lives per year. Currently 2.9 million newborns die annually. And tragically, another 2.6 million are stillbirths. Most of these deaths are never counted. Counting newborns across the globe is a strategic priority in the Every Newborn Action Plan.

The Every Newborn Action Plan lays out the ways in which more newborns can survive through robust continuum of care and provides a framework for countries to reduce their individual newborn mortality rates. The plan has an ambitious goal to reduce newborn deaths t0 10 per 1000 people the world over by 2035. In order to reach these goals five strategic objectives have been outlined. The five objectives are  (1) strengthen and invest in care during labour, birth and the first day and week of life, (2) improve the quality of maternal and newborn care (3) reach every woman and newborn to reduce inequities (4) harness the power of parents, families and communities and (5) count every newborn – measurement, programme-tracking and  accountability.

Now that the Every Newborn Action Plan has been adopted by the World Health Assembly and officially launched at the Partners’ Forum, it is now time for individual countries to implement the plan and save more newborn lives. It’s now time for the implementation and accountability phase. We’ll be watching closely.