Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI)

In the mid-1990s, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), with substantial USAID support, developed the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy as a new approach to sustaining and accelerating declines in child mortality. Since its introduction, IMCI has brought together a set of interventions directed at diarrhea, ARI, malaria, malnutrition, and measles. In recent years, USAID has supported expanding the use of the IMCI strategy in communities and households as part of a concerted effort to extend the coverage of child health care and the use of basic services to previously unreached populations in the poorest countries.

IMCI began as a facility-based approach focusing on health worker skills and health system improvements, but it has now expanded to include key community and household practices that can promote child health and survival.

USAID was a major supporter of the clinical and applied research that developed the IMCI strategy, and the Agency continues to support its implementation and expansion. By 2001, with USAID and WHO support, the strategy had been implemented in 86 countries.