The African Union Commission through the Department of Health, Humanitarian Affairs, and Social Development in coordination with the East Africa Community launches the CARMMA plus campaign to provide an opportunity for the East Africa Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to convene stakeholders and galvanize their countries ownership and leadership as well as technical and financial support to the campaign. The launch is taking place alongside the Eastern Africa Regional Early Childhood Conference scheduled from 11-14 March 2024 in the United Republic of Tanzania under the theme: “Investing in early childhood: Building Human Capital along life course.”

This launch intends primarily to advocate for ongoing improved reproductive health for women, children, and adolescents by 2030 within all EAC partner States. Specifically, to:

Sensitize stakeholders on the Agenda of CARMMA Plus and galvanize East Africa Community region ownership and leadership to enforce accountability.
Generate sustained momentum for stakeholders' efforts in the EAC region and emphasize their contributions to Reproductive Maternal, Newborn/Neonatal ,Child and Adolescent (RMNCAH) and to improve reproductive health outcomes for women, children, and adolescents by 2030.
Strengthen coordination mechanisms between the Ministry of Health in the EAC region.
Encourage scaled-up investments through increased domestic resources for RMNCAH by sharing experiences and best practices from EAC Partner States.

The campaign on accelerated reduction of maternal mortality in Africa (CARMMA) was first launched in May 2009. It is an initiative of the African Union Commission (AUC) that aimed at  curbing  high pregnancy-related deaths, promote and advocate for renewed and intensified implementation of the 2006 Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA) to reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality by improving health outcomes for African women and children. It was designed to use policy dialogue, advocacy, and community mobilization to enlist political commitment and increase resources and societal change in support of Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH).

In 2019, the African Union Commission evaluated the CARMMA campaign to determine its relevance, appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability. The evaluation revealed that African Union Member States that embraced the campaign at the highest political levels made significant improvements in their Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) indicators. The overall analysis of the campaign from its evaluation indicated that CARMMA is still relevant in Africa.

The Commission through the Department of Health, Humanitarian Affairs, and Social Development developed a new roadmap and its accountability partnership framework for re-strengthening the campaign, which has been endorsed by the AU Policy Organs in 2022. The next phase of implementation of the CARMMA Plus 2021 -2030 focuses on the unfinished Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) health agenda for women, new-borns, children, and adolescents that birth the “Plus to CARMMA” to be entitled CARMMA Plus taking into account Africa’s transformative Agenda 2063, the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the revised African Health Strategy 2016-2030, and the revised Maputo Plan of Action (2016-2030) for women and children as well as the AU continental Strategy on education for health and wellbeing of young people.

The CARMMA Plus campaign will focus on four key objectives: 1. broaden and strengthen accountability partnerships for RMNCAH, 2. enhance leadership and governance for RMNCAH policies and quality of services, 3. improve SRHR outcomes for adolescents through increased access to information, and services, and 4. finally strengthen knowledge management and learning systems.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Union (AU).