Every Woman Every Child‘s
Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health

Operationalizing the Global Strategy

Why an Operational Framework?

The Operational Framework is intended to accompany the Global Strategy and to serve as a resource for national governments and the wide diversity of stakeholders within countries whose contributions are vital to improving the health and well-being of women, children and adolescents – including civil society, the private sector and development partners.

It offers guidance and options for consideration as countries translate the Global Strategy into national and sub-national strategies and plans, starting with the period 2016-2020. These strategies can – and should – build on existing country-level processes and plans already underway.

The document is neither a prescriptive nor an exhaustive set of strategies. Instead, it presents objectives to implement the Global Strategy at country level around the nine action areas, including examples of country experiences. For each action area there is a corresponding “ingredient” for action:

1. Country leadership – Country leadership
2. Financing for health – Aligning and mobilizing financing
3. Health system resilience – Strengthening health systems
4. Individual potential – Establishing priorities for realizing individual potential
5. Community engagement – Supporting community engagement, participation and advocacy
6. Multisectoral action – Enhancing mechanisms for multisectoral action
7. Humanitarian and fragile settings – Strengthening capacity for action in humanitarian and fragile settings
8. Research and innovation – Fostering research and innovation
9. Accountability – Reinforcing global and national accountability mechanisms

The Operational Framework has been conceptualized as a “living document” with the potential to evolve as countries gain experience in translating the SDG agenda. It also provides an online central location to bring together tools and resources for implementation and to facilitate ongoing compilation and sharing of country experiences.