Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Doctors Without Borders/Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) blog post, a pediatric nurse working at a busy hospital in Ethiopia shares her experiences in ensuring that very young babies have the best possible start in life.

• Ethiopia has one of the highest neonatal mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa, but organizations such as MSF can provide much-needed infrastructure to reduce such troubling trends. How can funders support these efforts?

• Here are ways to move from incremental to transformative change in Africa.

Worldwide, almost half of the deaths in children aged under five years old occur in the first 28 days of life, when babies are considered "neonatal."

Despite great progress since 1990, Ethiopia has one of the highest neonatal mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve recently arrived at the MSF hospital in Gambella, in the west of the country.

For newborns, the care needed is very specialized, but that doesn't necessarily mean it requires high levels of technology
The hospital is finding itself overwhelmed. It was built for a capacity of 100,000 people, and is now serving a population of 800,000 — half of whom are refugees from neighboring South Sudan.

And this is where MSF comes in. We are providing infrastructure, equipment, training and support to the regional hospital in efforts to reduce deaths and improve health in the area. The youngest are most affected by lack of access to quality health care.

For newborns, the care needed is very specialized, but that doesn't necessarily mean it requires high levels of technology.

Read the full article about meeting neonatal needs in Africa by Harriet Zych at Doctors Without Borders.