Countries’ progress for women’s and children’s health in the Millennium Development Goal era: the Countdown to 2015 experience

Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival (Countdown) began in 2003, monitoring and analysing country progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 (reduce child mortality) and 5 (improve maternal health), responding to The Lancet Child Survival Series For 12 years Countdown synthesised data on coverage and its key determinants across the continuum of care for women's and children's health, and regularly disseminated country profiles, reports, and publications in high impact journals Understanding global level progress to the MDGs was more recently complemented by a series of country case studies (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Pakistan, Peru, and Tanzania), many are accompanied by national review meetings to inform policy formulation and programme implementation This supplement collates learning from these analyses.