A programme review for maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (MNCAH) is a process for assessing mid- or end-term country progress in improving the health of women, newborns, children and adolescents. A programme review is conducted at the national or subnational level as part of the regular MNCAH programme planning and implementation cycle. The purpose of this guide is to assist countries in planning and facilitating an integrated review of MNCAH programmes. The guide provides a recommended approach for conducting MNCAH programme reviews, however, it is not intended to be prescriptive, and the processes should be adapted to suit the needs of a country or programme. A facilitator’s guide and an MNCAH programme review data tool complement the guide. These resources help in assessing the results that MNCAH programmes have achieved, identifying gaps in intervention implementation, and providing recommendations and solutions to improve the health status of women, newborns, children and adolescents. The main audience for the guide includes: - national and subnational programme managers and officers from MNCAH involved in planning, implementing and monitoring programmes within a ministry of health; - programme managers and officers in related programmes in a ministry of health or other ministry; - nongovernmental, private-sector and international partners involved in planning, implementing and funding MNCAH programmes.

A programme review for maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (MNCAH) is a process for assessing mid- or end-term country progress in improving the health of women, newborns, children and adolescents. A programme review is conducted at the national or subnational level as part of the regular MNCAH programme planning and implementation cycle. The purpose of this facilitators’ guide is to assist countries in planning and facilitating an integrated review of MNCAH programmes at national and subnational level. It complements the Guide for conducting national and subnational programme reviews for maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and the MNCAH programme review data tool. This facilitators’ guide outlines the main steps for coordinating and implementing a programme review for MNCAH, including: preparing for the programme review process; gathering data and information; planning and facilitating a programme review workshop; and reporting findings of the programme review. However these processes should be adapted to suit the needs of the setting where it is being used. It is intended for those organizing and facilitating a programme review for MNCAH. To assist in facilitating a programme review workshop, a suggested overview presentation and templates for group work are available.

This guidance describes a catalogue of indicators for maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (MNCAH) that can be monitored through health management information system data. It is a module of the WHO Toolkit for Routine Health Information Systems (RHIS) Data and links to relevant indicators from other programmatic modules of the WHO toolkit. The document provides guidance on possible analysis and visualization of the indicators, including considerations for interpreting and using the data for decisionmaking. An annex on data quality considerations for MNCAH managers provides suggestions for reviewing and interpreting routine health facility data through a quality lens. Accompanying this guidance are a series of presentations and exercises, including a facilitator guide, that can be used in workshops to strengthen capacity of analysis, interpretation, and use of data by MNCAH managers. The target audience for the guidance and accompanying materials are ministry of health staff working on MNCAH programmes and monitoring and evaluation activities at national and subnational levels; health workers; and partner organizations involved in supporting MNCAH programmes and monitoring. This text will be submitted to Language Services for translation whenever a publication is requested for translation and also provided to WHO Press at the same time as the translation.

The eighth meeting of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group of Experts (STAGE) for maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition (MNCAHN) was held in Geneva on 14–16 November 2023. Most of the STAGE members attended in person while five attended the meeting online. They were joined by WHO staff at headquarters and online from regional offices, and 50 observers from partner organizations. The meeting agenda included three new topics (maternal well-being, birth defects and complementary feeding) and detailed updates on various topics from the previous meetings (maternal newborn stillbirth transition framework, maternal and newborn health (MNH) commodities, midwifery models of care, caregiver practices as part of child and adolescent health well-being, and kangaroo mother care (KMC)). The preparatory work included meetings either with existing working groups of STAGE or with small subgroups with the co-chairs of the two workstreams and select STAGE members. These groups provided inputs to the WHO technical teams for the preparation of background information and for the presentations to STAGE. The open sessions on each day enabled inputs from STAGE members, WHO regional offices and observers from various organizations, while the closed sessions with STAGE members helped consolidate the STAGE recommendations. These were further finetuned through online consultations with the members and the final STAGE recommendations are provided in this report.