Save the Children works to address the unique and complex causes of illness, malnutrition, and death in mothers, newborns and young children with the aim of ensuring that no child dies of preventable causes before their fifth birthday. Within the health and nutrition thematic area, Save the Children supports efforts to achieve universal coverage of a package of proven, high-impact maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition interventions. To ensure delivery of these interventions, Save the Children collaborates with communities, children, government departments, international and local non-governmental organizations, donors and others to identify and address supply and demand-related bottlenecks in both humanitarian and development contexts.
We categorize these interventions by the following sub-thematic areas of work:
MARTENAL, NEWBORN & REPRODUCTIVE
Save the Children's MNRH work is organized around support for the delivery of three primary packages of services: family planning and reproductive health, ante-natal care, and intra-partum and post-natal care. The organization places particular emphasis on community-based service provision and achieving universal coverage of skilled birth attendance.
Family Planning and Reproductive Health: Save the Children seeks to reduce the unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services.
Antenatal Care: Save the Children collaborates with ministries of health and other partners to support the delivery of the WHO-endorsed "focused antenatal care" package.
Intra-Partum and Post-Natal Care: Save the Children collaborates with governments and other partners to improve access to quality intra-partum and post-natal care.
NUTRITION
Save the Children's nutrition programs focus on the delivery of evidence-based nutrition interventions during the "first 1000 days," the period between pregnancy and a child's second birthday. Our programs support efforts to ensure adequate food and nutrient intake in pregnant women and young children, effective infant and child feeding and care practices, and protection against infectious diseases. Social change, behaviour change and communication approaches form the foundation of Save the Children's nutrition programming in stable contexts.
ADOLESCENT SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (ASRH)
Save the Children uses proven approaches such as peer-to-peer counselling to empower adolescents on their sexual reproductive health choices. We work with families and communities to increase the availability, accessibility and quality of reproductive health services across the adolescent lifespan, with particular attention to the needs of "very young adolescents" (10- to 14-year-olds) who are often overlooked during program design.
CHILD HEALTH
Save the Children's child health programs focus on empowering frontline health workers and others to deliver these low-cost, proven interventions. Priority program areas include the following: Integrated community case management of childhood illness (iCCM); Community and facility based integrated management of neonatal and childhood illnesses (IMNCI).
Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
While WASH cuts across Save the Children's breakthroughs, work under this subtheme, "WASH for Health," aims to reduce stunting in children under 2 and reduce diarrhoea in children under 5.Priority program areas include the following: Behavioural interventions focused on increasing uptake of optimal WASH related practices and services; policy work to refocus national efforts on interventions going beyond communities to more effectively reach households with children under 5;Market-oriented approaches to support household level improvement in water quality, safe disposal of human faeces (particularly children's faeces) and hand washing facilities; and, promotion of environmentally safe play spaces for infants and young children.
Our Common Approaches
A Common Approach within Save the Children is a shared, evidence-based way of addressing a specific problem affecting children, built on what has been proven to work in different settings. It is designed to be adapted to local contexts and replicated across countries, ensuring consistency while allowing flexibility. Within the Health and Nutrition sector, five Common Approaches are currently endorsed:
Treating Children Close to Home: (Integrated Community Case Management), which brings lifesaving care closer to families;
Saving Newborn Lives: which focuses on care around birth and the early days of life;
Nourishing the Youngest: which supports optimal nutrition in early childhood;
My Sexual Health and Rights: which empowers adolescents and young people with knowledge and services;
Contraception by Choice: which ensures informed, voluntary access to family planning. Together, these Common Approaches provide a clear, practical foundation for improving health and nutrition outcomes for children and families.
OUR WORK IN ZIMBABWE
Save the Children has a strong track record in health systems strengthening, supporting resilient, community-anchored service delivery aligned with national and global standards for maternal, newborn, child health and sexual and reproductive health. Through flagship programmes such as the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Programme, the Zimbabwe Assistance Programme on Malaria, Strengthening Community Participation in Health, and the Community Accountability for Zimbabwe Martenal, Newborn, and Child Health Programme. Save the Children has strengthened health workforce capacity, referral systems, community–facility linkages, and routine data use. These investments have improved quality of care, accountability, and continuity of services, particularly for rural and hard-to-reach populations.
In parallel, Save the Children has delivered effective health emergency responses and innovation-driven programming, integrating health, nutrition, and WASH during shocks and disease outbreaks. Save the Children has led and supported multiple responses for Cholera, COVID-19, Measles, Mpox and Malaria. Save the Children has also conducted complementary innovations such as the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition (HBCC) , Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) global research, and Primary Health Care advocacy to strengthened behaviour change, digital learning, and policy influence, contributing to sustainable improvements in health outcomes across Zimbabwe.