The Lancet Global Health: Tracking aid for global health goals: a systematic comparison of four approaches applied to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health
Catherine Pitt, assistant professor in the Department of Global Health and Development at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and colleagues compare the methodologies of four initiatives — Countdown to 2015, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the Muskoka Initiative, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — to estimate aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH). The authors note, “The four approaches are likely to lead to different conclusions about whether individual donors and recipient countries have fulfilled their obligations and commitments and whether aid was sufficient, targeted to countries with greater need, or effective. We recommend that efforts to track aid for the Sustainable Development Goals reflect their multisectoral and interconnected nature and make analytical choices that are appropriate to their objectives…” (August 2018).

The Lancet Global Health: Improving tracking of aid for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health
In an accompanying commentary, Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health (CPIGH) at Duke University’s Duke Global Health Institute; Marco Schäferhoff, managing director at Open Consultants; and Kaci Kennedy, policy associate at CPIGH, cite results from the study by Catherine Pitt and colleagues and discuss the proceedings of a consultation convened to develop a new method to “accurately track spending on RMNCH by donors and low-income and middle-income governments and, ultimately, accelerate progress in reducing maternal and child deaths worldwide” (August 2018).