Fifth Meeting of the SEAR-TAG and first meeting of Sexual Reproductive Health Technical subcommittee towards reduction of maternal mortality and stillbirths in the context of universal health coverage

Overview

A Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for women’s and children’s health was created by WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) by the Regional Director in 2015, to support the Regional Flagship Priority Area on ‘ending preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths with a focus on neonatal deaths’. Through the last four TAG meetings, recommendations have been provided to accelerate reduction of preventable mortality among mothers, newborns, children, and improve adolescent health. While sustaining the gains in mortality reductions, guidance has been provided to address elements of thrive and transform of Global Strategy on Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. The recommendations have been shared with the Member States.

To further strengthen the regional efforts in reducing maternal mortality, a WHO global project on ‘Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR): A ten-year vision for enhancing WHO’s capacity to support countries in achieving universal access to SRHR’ has been initiated in the Region. To guide the implementation of the project, a sub-TAG on SRHR has been constituted under the existing TAG for women’s and children’s health. The terms of reference of the SRHR-TAG includes (in addition to maternal health), family planning (FP), cervical cancer and comprehensive abortion care (CAC) with a focus on reproductive and sexual rights.

A meeting of the TAG members, SRHR sub-committee members along with H6 Regional Working Group Members, National Programme Managers from Ministries of Health, Representatives of academic institutions, WHO Collaborating Centers, professional associations and development partners was held from 25–27 November 2019, New Delhi, India. The focus of this meeting was accelerating reduction of maternal mortality and stillbirths in Member States. Another meeting of the TAG and SRHR sub-committee to discuss maternal health, stillbirth prevention and other areas of sexual reproductive health was held between 28–29 November 2019.