SUMMARY: The DIPOMATIC Collaboration is an National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) global health research group, based in the UK, Malawi and Zambia. The aim of DIPLOMATIC is to reduce preterm birth and stillbirth and to optimise outcomes for babies born preterm In Malawi and Zambia. Annual deaths from preterm birth and stillbirth in Malawi and Zambia are over 36,500: the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that the majority of these deaths are preventable. The DIPLOMATIC collaboration is a programme of work consisting of eight workpackages that aim to use existing knowledge of evidence based practices (EBP) currently used in high income countries. We will use new trial designs to test in low income countries the effectiveness of a collection of the best practices, and to evaluate how they are best implemented. We recognise the differences that cultures, traditions, gender roles, resources, workforce constraints, disease burdens and community understandings of pregnancy and birth bring, and have therefore designed this programme to examine strategies to develop and to implement contextualized evidenced based on local practices building on successes and challenges of current best practice high income countries FUNDING: This research was commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) [17/63/08 - NIHR global health research group on preterm birth and stillbirth at the University of Edinburgh (the DIPLOMATIC collaboration) using Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. DIPLOMATIC WEBSITE: https://www.ed.ac.uk/centre-reproductive-health/diplomatic/diplomatic-study