The international community's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals includes a target of reducing the mortality rate among children under five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Although the nutrition and health interventions needed to accomplish this goal already exist, less than half of all newborns and children receive them. As a result, preventable conditions cause most of the world's 9.7 million annual childhood deaths, and these deaths are largely concentrated in developing countries.

BASICS' mission is to help Ministries of Health and their partners implement large-scale, evidence-based interventions that have been proven to be effective in preventing and treating the major causes of newborn and childhood death. These include malaria, pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, malnutrition, birth complications, and HIV/AIDS. Because most infants and children in developing countries have limited or no access to the formal health system, BASICS places strong emphasis on improving the reach of health programs through community-based treatment, including private sector drug distribution.

Begun in 1994 and now in its third 5-year cycle, BASICS partners with the USAID Bureau for Global Health to develop and implement newborn and child survival strategies. The project is funded by USAID and implemented by the Partnership for Child Health Care, Inc., comprised of the Academy for Educational Development, John Snow, Inc., and Management Sciences for Health, and supported by the Manoff Group, Inc., PATH, and Save the Children USA.

BASICS provides assistance to USAID Missions that are seeking to increase the use of proven child health and nutrition interventions by families, communities, and health systems to achieve population-level impact; strengthen health systems to improve the quality of care and address inequalities in coverage; expand the reach and effectiveness of health services through community-based and private sector approaches; and operationalize new interventions, based on scientific evidence and best practices for health programming.

BASICS’ two-pronged approach to reducing infant and child mortality is to offer expert technical assistance to countries in scaling-up effective, life-saving interventions for newborns and children, and provide global leadership in identifying, evaluating, and applying approaches that deepen the impact of child survival programs.