Table 3 Everyone has a role to play: actions for the six key constituency groups involved in Every Women Every Child

Governments and policy-makers at local, national, regional and global levels:

Invest

• Set national targets for improved survival of premature babies and increase funding to ensuring equitable access to quality care to meet these targets by 2025.

Implement

• Strengthen health systems for quality maternal and neonatal care, including improved community awareness and demand for RMNCH services and adopt policies to promote universal access to quality preconception and maternal and perinatal services.

Innovate

• Promote the discovery, development and delivery of affordable and essential medicines, new technologies and novel models for training and services to prevent preterm birth and improve care of premature babies.

Inform

• Improve systems for collecting, evaluating and disseminating data on preterm birth rates, mortality, disability, quality of life and equitable coverage of evidence-based interventions to track progress towards MDGs 4 and 5 for maternal and child survival.

The United Nations and other multilateral organistions:

Invest

• Support countries develop and align their national health plans, including costing and tracking implementation to achieve the health MDGs and preterm birth mortality-reduction targets.

Implement

• Define norms and guidelines to support efforts to improve women's and children's health, and encourage their adoption through provision of technical assistance and programmatic support for the prevention and treatment of preterm births.

Innovate

• Generate and disseminate evidence on preterm birth and provide a platform for sharing best practices, and use the UN Commodities Commission to address gaps for essential equipment and medicines (e.g., antenatal corticosteroids).

Inform

• Support the production, dissemination and use of coverage data for evidence-based interventions through the Countdown to 2015 and Commission for Information and Accountability through the independent Expert Review Group.

Donors and philanthropic institutions:

Invest

• Provide sustained long-term support in line with national health policies and RMNCH plans that incorporate preterm births and are harmonised with other related global health initiatives.

Innovate

• Support high-priority research efforts to address solution gaps and implementation research to inform the scale up of evidence-based interventions to reduce preterm deaths.

Inform

• Promote transparent tracking of commitments and accountability and of long-term improvements in national health management and information systems.

The business community:

Invest

• Invest additional resources to develop and adapt devices and commodities to prevent and treat preterm birth in low-income settings using innovative partnerships and business models.

Implement

• Scale up best practices and partner with the public sector to improve service delivery and infrastructure for prevention and management of preterm birth.

Innovate

• Develop affordable new diagnostics, medicines, technologies and other interventions, including social and behavioural change, for preterm birth and make them available to the most vulnerable and marginalised.

Inform

• Use and strengthen existing tracking systems for commodities and devices to improve supply chain logistics.

Academic and research institutions:

Invest

• Agree upon and promote an innovative research agenda for prevention of preterm birth and improved pregnancy outcomes and implementation research to reduce deaths from preterm birth.

Implement

• Build capacity at research institutions, especially in low- and middle-income countries, and train professionals.

Innovate

• Advance policy development by improving the metrics for impairment outcomes as well as preterm birth rates, and link to other pregnancy outcomes, reporting on trends and emerging issues relating to preterm births.

Inform

• Strengthen global networks to disseminate new research findings and best practice related to preterm birth through leveraging the momentum from Born Too Soon and commitments of these institutions.

Health care workers and their professional organisations:

Invest

• Advocate for and participate in evidence-based training, deployment and retention of workers with the necessary skills to address the burden of preterm birth.

Implement

• Use evidence-based standards to prevent or treat preterm births; implement training; and update curricula with evidence-based interventions. Treat women, newborns and children with respect and sensitivity.

Innovate

• Work in partnership to provide universal access to the essential package of interventions, including both prevention and care, and involving task shifting where appropriate.

Inform

• Improve data collection to track preterm births and measurements, such as consistent assessment of gestational age, birthweight, cause of death, data on impairment and retinopathy of prematurity.

Civil society:

Invest

• Advocate for increased attention to the health of women, newborns and children through strengthening parent groups and conducting national campaigns focusing on preterm birth.

Implement

• Strengthen community and local capabilities to scale up implementation of interventions for preterm birth and support families who have lost babies or require long-term support for disability.

Innovate

• Develop and test innovative approaches to deliver essential services for prevention and care, particularly ones aimed at the most vulnerable and marginalised people.

Inform

• Educate, engage and mobilise communities to improve health education and care, beginning in adolescence; promote cost-effective solutions; track progress and hold all stakeholders at global, regional, national and local levels accountable for their commitments; promote accountability through the issuance of annual Countdown to 2015 country data profiles and global and national reports that document preterm birth rates and associated mortality and coverage of evidence-based interventions.