Protecting and improving the health of children is fundamentally important, as every child has the right to survive, grow and reach their full potential. The world faces a dual challenge: preventing avoidable child deaths through equitable access to quality health services, while also ensuring that children grow up in safe, nurturing environments with adequate nutrition, protection and opportunities for healthy development.

Child health and development remain major public health priorities in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, where approximately 800 000 children under 5 years old die each year. Although under5 mortality has fallen by more than 50% since 1990, this overall progress masks wide disparities between countries. The risk of mortality is greatest early in life, with newborn deaths – infants under 28 days – accounting for nearly 60% of all under5 deaths. Leading causes include complications of preterm birth, birth asphyxia and trauma, pneumonia, congenital abnormalities, and diarrhoea.

Early childhood development (ECD) is central to WHO’s vision of ensuring that every child reaches their full developmental potential. Global guidance highlights the importance of responsive caregiving, early learning, optimal nutrition and integrated psychosocial support as foundations for lifelong health and wellbeing.

Ensuring sustained access to essential child health services – including in humanitarian settings – is critical for reducing mortality and enabling children not only to survive, but to thrive.

Child health extends far beyond survival, encompassing healthy growth, development and longterm wellbeing. Malnutrition remains a pervasive challenge, contributing to nearly half of all deaths among children under 5 years in low and middleincome countries. In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, an estimated 24.3 million children under 5 are stunted (too short for age) and 5.9 million are wasted (too thin for height). When malnutrition is not addressed during the first months of life and before a child’s second birthday, it can severely impair physical growth, brain development and learning. Poor feeding practices are widespread in many countries, particularly regarding exclusive breastfeeding and the timely introduction of appropriate solid and semi-solid foods.

Unintentional injuries also pose a major threat to child survival. Global Health Estimates indicate that 6% of deaths among children aged 0–5 years result from injuries, with drowning representing the largest share. The Eastern Mediterranean Region has the highest global drowning rate among children aged 0–4, at 16.8 per 100 000. As children grow older (5–14 years), drowning, road traffic injuries and falls become leading causes of death, requiring strong multisectoral action. Violence against children adds further burden, affecting up to 1 billion children globally, with the Region accounting for 10% of global child homicides, and imposing profound health, social and economic consequences.

WHO collaborates with Member States and partners to enhance child survival and meet the Sustainable Development Goal 3 target of ending preventable deaths in newborns and children under 5 by 2030 as well as to promote child development and well-being.

To achieve this, WHO promotes health equity through universal health coverage, ensuring all children can access essential health services without financial hardship – whether in routine settings or during humanitarian crises.

Key strategies and tools

The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region advances child health and development through three strategic priorities: promoting equitable access to quality care, protecting children from the impact of health emergencies, and strengthening integration, multisectoral coordination, and partnerships. These are all grounded in a lifecourse, universal health coverage approach.

To operationalize these priorities, countries are supported through a set of evidencebased, highimpact tools and implementation resources. The Early essential newborn care package ensures every newborn receives life-saving interventions immediately after birth, including skin-to-skin contact, early breastfeeding, and infection prevention. These simple, evidence-based practices reduce complications and improve survival. The Integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) strategy remains a cornerstone of child health programming, offering an integrated approach to the management of common childhood conditions while strengthening health worker competencies and reinforcing family and community care practices.

Complementing these global tools, the Region provides contextspecific guidance to support scaleup and continuity of care. This includes the Regional implementation guide for newborn, child and adolescent health, Child and adolescent health in humanitarian settings: operational guide, and the Regional package for integrated care for newborn and child health and development at home. Collectively, these strategies enable countries to reduce preventable mortality, narrow inequities and strengthen resilient health systems, ensuring all children can survive and thrive.