This paper outlines the UN’s strategy for more fully improving the health of women and children around the world from 2010-2015. It sets out the key areas where urgent action is required to enhance financing, strengthen policy and improve service delivery.
The Global Strategy focuses on women and children when they are most vulnerable. In the poorest areas of the world, pregnant women and new-borns are at the greatest risk of death or injury during childbirth and the first few hours and days afterwards. Adolescents are also vulnerable, for example, to violence and sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV. The strategy emphasises giving these groups over their life choices, including their fertility. It also focuses on equity of access and outcomes, calling for a special effort to reach those who are disadvantaged and marginalised.
Recommendations:
- Significantly improving and sustaining women’s and children’s access to affordable health interventions requires strengthened health systems with sufficient skilled health workers at their core. All the partners involved will need to integrate, working across diseases and sectors. Their work needs to be backed up by a concerted effort to promote human rights, gender equality and poverty reduction.
- Working together in support of country-led health plans, partners must integrate services that are currently delivered by separate programs where it makes sense to do so. Efforts must be coordinated to address issues that affect the health of women and children, such as water and sanitation, nutrition, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
- Investment in women’s and children’s health must increase significantly between 2010 and 2015. To achieve the health MDGs in the 49 lowest-income countries alone, an additional US$26 billion (US$19 per capita) must be invested in 2011, building to an additional US$42 billion (US$27 per capita) in 2015. The direct costs of programs relating to reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health – including the health systems costs supporting their delivery – account for almost half of this additional investment.
- All funders can and should do more to bridge the gap. High-income countries should meet their current commitments, and make additional long-term, predictable contributions. The 49 lowest-income countries should ensure that, as their economies grow, they invest more in women’s and children’s health and improve service delivery. Other low- and middle-income countries should continue to invest in their own health sectors, with external assistance as required. They should also forge partnerships with each other, exchanging expertise and providing support for the lowest-income countries.
- Foundations and civil society organisations should make significant additional contributions of financial, human and organisational resources. The private sector can spur innovation, reduce product prices, increase donations, and partner with others to improve the systems for delivering products and services. The UN and multilateral agencies and funders can ensure that more funds are channelled to women, adolescents and children. And multilateral development banks can give more in grants, credits and soft loans.
- Across all work to improve women’s and children’s health, accountability for commitments, actions and results are key. The foundation of accountability is national leadership and country ownership. To promote this, partners must collectively support improvements in national monitoring and evaluation data (availability and quality), as well as supporting community-based monitoring.
- Countries’ current reporting burden must be reduced, while international mechanisms are strengthened and harmonised, improving reporting on global and national progress, donor disbursements, and civil society contributions. Commitments made as part of the Global Strategy should be tracked every two years.
