PACHI Committed To Scale Up Child Survival Efforts As Govt Encourages Partnerships For Greater Impact

Parent and Child Health Initiative (PACHI) set to work hard with support from UNICEF in ending preventable child deaths by accelerating progress on maternal newborn and child survival.

Statistics indicates that though Malawi has registered a decline in child mortality rates per 1000 live births from 112 in 2010 to 71 representing annual rate of reduction of 5.6%, child death are unacceptably high as the A Promise Renewed (APR) 2013 report indicates 12 under five children die every minute.

According to the report, causes of death includes; pneumonia (13%), diarrhea (7%), malaria (14%), neonatal (32%) and HIV and AIDS (12%) and other diseases (12%) which are preventable and have treatment. 

Charles Makwenda 

Chief Executive Officer for PACHI Charles Makwenda says the organisation has set number of activities to including awareness among Malawians and lobby for improved health services.

“We would like to engage the communities, its very important for the communities to understand first that the number of death currently on the table are not acceptable and should do something because very often communities do accept the fate of death.”

“They have to understand that this can be changed” he added 

He said among others the engagements will include the awareness messages that the communities must demand for better health services from government 

Magwira 

Principal Secretary for Health Dr. MacPhail Magwira observes that partnerships and collaborative relationships are critical to deliver results for children and to contribute significantly to realising their rights and child survival.

"In a developing country shuch as Malawi it is critical that a broad range of strategic partnerships are established to achieve appropriate outcomes" said Magwira who called Civil Society Organisations (CSO's) to collaborate with government saying "Malawi realises" that CSO's has the local knowledge to inderstand what works at the grassroots level as well as challenges.

MacPhail Magwira: collaboration is power

He also appealed to all faith groups and CSO's to continue encourage local communities and families to adopt "priority behaviors" ten life saving acts for children.

"As government following our renewed commitment to reduce child deaths we will not only support but also initiate the involvement of the civil society in the APR movement" he said



Magwira however hailed CSO's for their focus on social accountability as part of APR in Malawi which he said will go beyond the sharpening, implementing and scaling up of high impact internvetions for maternal and neonatal health and provide a greater scope toward promoting engagement of children and families and communities to hold authorities accountable with respect to rights fulfilment.

Since the Child Survival Call to Action, in June 2012, in Washington DC, 178 governments as well as hundreds of civil society and faith based organisations have signed a pledge, vowing to do everything possible to stop women and children from dying of causes that are easily avoidable. 

Malawi is one of the 178 countries that have renewed their commitments to reduce under-five mortarity to 20 or less under-five deaths per 1000 live births by 2035 under 'A Promise Renewed (APR)' Initiative.