The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean held a regional meeting for engaging countries and strengthening partnerships towards better maternal and child health in Amman, Jordan, from 21 to 23 November 2018.
The objectives of the meeting were to:
• build the technical capacity of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health focal points at WHO country offices for adopting the regional framework on the updated maternal and child health guidelines and recommendations, and determine key priorities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW 13);
• discuss tools and approaches with the WHO focal points and national programme managers to translate the maternal and child health shared guidelines into action/practice to reach SDG/GPW 13 targets;
• strengthen the skills of WHO focal points to mobilize domestic and international resources through innovative approaches and to ensure sustainable financing mechanisms for maternal and child health programmes; and
• update participants on target setting and monitoring of national reproductive and maternal health indicators using linkages between the SDGs and GPW 13 targets.
The meeting was attended by 88 participants from most Member States of the Region, as well as experts from Jordan, Morocco,Tunisia, and United Kingdom, and staff from the Aman Jordanian Association, Marie Stoops International (Jordan), UNAIDS, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and WHO country, regional, and headquarter offices.
