Fri, 22 Sep 2023
Since former US President Bill Clinton founded the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2005, more than 9,000 organisations have launched 3,900 ‘Commitments to Action’ through the community’s unique model.
At this week’s CGI meeting in New York, Australia-based Adara Group made an extraordinary Commitment to Action, which it hopes will save more than 7,000 lives.
Audette Exel AO, Founder and Chair of the Adara Group (pictured below) announced a $16 million (USD10.6 million) commitment to scale its AdaraNewborn health care model across multiple health facilities in Uganda.
AdaraNewborn is described as an evidence-based, high-impact model with the power to halve newborn deaths and stillbirths across 10 health facilities in Uganda over the next decade. The model has been acknowledged as best practice by the Ugandan Ministry of Health and has been named an Exemplar in Global Health by Gates Ventures.
Newborn disorders are the leading cause of death across Africa and in Uganda according to the Global Burden of Disease. Most African nations, including Uganda, are not on target to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for newborn survival – 12 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births by 2030.
With this investment, Adara aims to support 500,000 mothers and babies across the continuum of care. This includes from pregnancy, to delivery, inpatient newborn care, postnatal care and follow-up at home.
“We know AdaraNewborn is a gamechanger not only for Uganda, but for low-resource settings globally,” said Audette.
“We’re proud to make this commitment and showcase that we’re serious about investing to support the achievement of the SDGs,” she said.
Adara’s Uganda Country Director Daniel Kabugo added: “Adara has pioneered a model for increasing survival rates for the sickest and smallest newborns to levels in some high-income countries, and we have sustained that for a decade.
“There are seven years left to achieve the SDGs and most off-track countries cannot meet this goal without reducing the deaths of newborns. That means investing in models like AdaraNewborn at scale,” Daniel said.
Read more about AdaraNewborn at: https://www.adaragroup.org/development/maternal-newborn-child-health/adaranewborn/
