Ethiopia has made significant progress in reducing child mortality but newborn mortality has stagnated at around 29 deaths per 1000 births. The Maternal Health in Ethiopia Partnership (MaNHEP) was a year implementation project aimed at developing a community-oriented model of maternal and newborn health in rural Ethiopia and to position it for scale up. | Illness recognition and appropriate care seeking for newborn complications in rural Oromia and Amhara regional states of Ethiopia