PHM-Exch> Analysing Commitments to Advance the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health (2)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Neil Pakenham-Walsh, UK <neil.pakenham-walsh at ghi-net.org>

This latest publication from WHO and the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn
and Child Health highlights many key issues:

1. There is a huge amount of new financial commitment for maternal, newborn
and child health - more than 40 billion US dollars.
2. There is a need to address gaps in the coverage of key life-saving
interventions
3. There is a need to avoid duplication and facilitate more efficient use of
resources.
4. Priorities for the future include health and human rights literacy and
health-seeking behaviour.

Here are some selected extracts from the Executive Summary:

'UNPRECEDENTED COMMITMENTS
The Global Strategy resulted in a remarkable set of commitments.
- 127 stakeholders made commitments to advance the Global Strategy,
collectively worth more than US$40 billion. This only includes monetized
commitments, and therefore underestimate the total value, as extensive
policy and service-delivery commitments were also made...
- Of the 127 stakeholders, 99 (78%) made commitments to strengthening health
systems and service-delivery. These included specific pledges to improve
health services and incorporate innovative approaches to expand utilization,
for example by using mobile phones to raise awareness and promote healthy
behaviours.
- Of the 127 stakeholders, 66 (52%) made commitments to building human
resource capacities for health. These included pledges to increase the
number of health workers (by more than 45 000), with 35% of these
commitments focused on skilled birth attendants and 23% on midwives...'

'NEXT STEPS FOR STAKEHOLDERS
Stakeholders can build on their existing work to achieve more in six focus
areas of the Global Strategy. In particular, they can...
- Link commitments to needs, addressing gaps in the coverage of key
life-saving interventions. Along the continuum of care, some interventions
received fewer commitments, such as postnatal care for mothers,
insecticide-treated bed nets and nutrition...
- Harmonize efforts to avoid duplication and facilitate more efficient use
of resources...
- Ensure that future commitments promote health and human rights literacy
and health-seeking behaviour. Less than 10% of the commitments have
addressed the need to promote health and human rights literacy, and
education, so that individuals and communities can have the information they
need to make decisions about their health, claim their rights and demand
accountability.
- Do more to strengthen community systems and participation, recognizing the
essential role communities play in providing healthcare, facilitating access
to health services, promoting citizen participation and empowerment,
advocating for essential interventions and addressing structural barriers to
health. Women and children, and their families and communities, cannot be
viewed as passive recipients of services. They must be active participants
in the realization of their rights.'

I would like to invite PHM  and afro-nets members who are committed 'to
promote health and human rights literacy, and education, so that individuals
and communities can have the information they need to make decisions about
their health, claim their rights and demand accountability' to join
HIFA2015, an online community of more than 4000 health professionals,
publishers, information professionals and others working for a world where
people are no longer dying for lack of basic healthcare knowledge:
www.hifa2015.org

Neil
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