Full document: Global Strategy for Women's and Children's health
A call to action – We all have a role to play
Everyone has a critical role to play in improving the health of the world’s women and children.
Governments and policymakers at local, national, regional and global levels must:
- Develop prioritized national health plans, and approve and allocate more funds
- Ensure resources are used effectively
- Strengthen health systems, including the health workforce, monitoring and evaluation systems and local community care
- Introduce or amend legislation and policies in line with the principles of human rights, linking women's and children's health to other areas (diseases, education, water and sanitation, poverty, nutrition, gender equity and empowerment)
- Encourage all stakeholders (including academics, healthcare organizations, the private sector, civil society, healthcare workers and donors) to participate and to harmonize their efforts
- Work with the private sector to ensure the development and delivery of affordable, essential medicines and new technologies for health
donor countries and global philanthropic institutions must:
- Provide predictable long-term support (financial and programmatic) in line with national plans and harmonized with other partners
- Advocate for focusing global health priorities on women and children
- Support research efforts
The United Nations and other multilateral organizations must:
- Define norms, regulations and guidelines to underpin efforts to improve women’s and children’s health, and encourage their adoption
- Help countries develop and align their national health plans
- Work together and with others to strengthen technical assistance and programmatic support, helping countries scale up their interventions and strengthen their health systems, including health-care workers and communitylevel care
- Encourage links between sectors and integration with other international efforts (such as those on education and gender equality), including harmonized reporting
- Support systems that track progress and identify funding gaps
- Generate and synthesize research-derived evidence, and provide a platform for sharing best practices, evidence on cost-effective interventions and research findings
Civil society must:
- Develop and test innovative approaches to delivering essential services, especially ones aimed at the most vulnerable and marginalized
- Educate, engage and mobilize communities
- Track progress and hold all stakeholders (including themselves) accountable for their commitments
- Strengthen community and local capabilities to scale up implementation of the most appropriate interventions
- Advocate increased attention to women’s and children’s health and increased investment in it
The business community must:
- Scale up best practices and partner with the public sector to improve service delivery and infrastructure
- Develop affordable new drugs, technologies and interventions
- Invest additional resources, provide financial support and reduce prices for goods
- Ensure community outreach and mobilization, coordinated with health-care workers
Health-care workers37 and their professional associations must
- Provide the highest-quality care, grounded in evidencebased medicine, share best practice, test new approaches, use the best tools possible and audit clinical practice
- Collaborate to provide universal access to the essential package of interventions, addressing the needs of the vulnerable and marginalized
- Identify areas where services could be improved and innovations made
- Ensure that women and children are treated with respect and sensitivity when they receive health care
- Advocate better training, deployment and retention of workers
- Work with academics responsible for training and continuing education
- Provide information to track progress and hold authorities and donors to account
Academic and research institutions must:
- Deliver a prioritized and coordinated research agenda
- Encourage increased budget allocation for research and innovation
- Build capacity at research institutions, especially in lowand middle-income countries
- Strengthen the global network of academics, researchers and trainers
- Help policy development by reporting on trends and emerging issues
- Disseminate new research findings and best practice