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Francis Kéré was born on April 10, 1965 in a little village called Gando in Burkina Faso. The village lacks electricity, clean water, and even a school.

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DAKAR, 1 January 2019 - An estimated 65,001 babies will be born in West and Central Africa on New Year's Day, accounting for more than 16 per cent of the estimated 395,072 babies to be born on New Year's Day worldwide, UNICEF said today.

In various places around the world, communities will welcome with festivities not only the New Year, but also their newest and tiniest residents.

In West and Central Africa, about two thirds of these births are estimated to take place in four countries: Nigeria, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Côte d'Ivoire.

While families will celebrate their newborns, many babies will not even have time to be named as they won't make it past their first days.

A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa is nine times more likely to die in the first month of life than a baby born in a high-income country. In West and Central Africa, an estimated 665,000 newborn babies died in 2018 - more than 1,800 every single day. In addition, there were about 600,000 stillbirths. The region has the highest neonatal mortality rate in the world (32/1,000 live births).

Most newborns died from preventable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia, a violation of their right to survival.

"This New Year Day, let us all make a good resolution to realize every right of every child, starting with the right to survive," said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. "We can save hundreds of thousands of babies every year in the region if we invest in strengthening health workers' skills and supplying health facilities with basic equipment, so that every newborn is born into a safe pair of hands and clean environment."

2019 also marks the 30 th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which UNICEF will be commemorating throughout the year. Under the convention, governments committed to, among other things, taking measures to save every child by providing good quality health care.

Over the past three decades, West and Central Africa has seen remarkable progress in child survival, cutting the number of children who die before their fifth birthday by 54 per cent. But there has been slower progress for newborns, with a 30 per cent reduction.

UNICEF's Every Child Alive campaign calls for immediate investment to deliver affordable, quality health care solutions for every mother and newborn. These include a steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, the presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, ample supplies and medicines to prevent and treat complications during pregnancy, delivery and birth, and empowered adolescent girls and women to access better quality of health services.

"Thirty years after world leaders committed to realizing children's rights, we are still losing newborns from preventable causes," said Ms Poirier. "This year, we should renew our efforts to give every baby in West and Central Africa a chance to survive, to thrive, to laugh, to play, to grow - to have a birth certificate and to have healthy, happy and productive life."

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New Year's Babies: Over 65,000 children will be born in West and Central Africa on New Year's Day - UNICEF

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DAKAR, 1 January 2019 - An estimated 65,001 babies will be born in West and Central Africa on New Year's Day, accounting for more than 16 per cent of the estimated 395,072 babies to be born on New Year's Day worldwide, UNICEF said today.

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His father wishes for him to learn to write and read. So, at the age of seven, he had to travel to a city far from his village. He lives apart from his family and cannot contact them.

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Francis has a privilege to get a scholarship to study in Berlin, Germany. He studied architecture at the Berlin Institute of Technology.

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He had always wanted to build a school in his village since he was a student. He wanted to give other children in Gando better opportunities. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough money. As a result, he began raising funds by drawing and convincing his friends to support his project. He was able to collect USD 50,000 two years later. When Francis delivered the good news to the people of Gando, they were over the moon.

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His first project was the construction of a primary school in Gando. Because the weather in Burkina Faso is so hot, the school has a great ventilation design. The community also contributed significantly to the traditional construction methods of this school.

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Following the primary school's successful project. Francis constructed a library. The building's opening is made up of numerous clay pots.

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His third project is to construct a high school. The innovation in this project is that he cast mud instead of concentrate. The community is also very important in this project.

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Francis' participation in developing his village's infrastructure is invaluable. He also always includes locals in his projects. This also helps the local economy by creating new job opportunities. As a result, local residents will no longer have to travel far to work. Francis had also received a prestigious architecture award for his outstanding work.