What is a Commitment?
Every Woman Every Child is a multi-stakeholder movement to implement the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, launched by the UN Secretary-General in September 2015 in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Since its launch in 2010, Every Woman Every Child has mobilized hundreds of partners for maximum effect, with hundreds of organizations making commitments to advance the Global Strategy. All partners have an important role to play: governments and policymakers, donor countries and philanthropic institutions, the United Nations and other multilateral organizations, civil society, the business community, health workers and their professional associations and academic and research institutions.
Those interested can contribute to the Every Woman Every Child movement by making a commitment that helps to fulfill the aims of the Global Strategy and achieve health and wellbeing for women, children and adolescents around the world.
Choose from the menu at the right to explore commitments made to date in support of Every Woman Every Child. We have already seen remarkable progress. Funding has been increased and US$45 billion of all committed funds has been disbursed since 2010. Numerous commitments have been implemented and enhanced, new partners have come on board, policies improved and services strengthened on the ground.
WHAT KINDS OF COMMITMENTS WERE MADE TO THE PREVIOUS GLOBAL STRATEGY?
Below are examples of commitments, which are by no means exhaustive, made from a variety of sectors, in the financial, policy and service delivery categories.
The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) has produced annual reports analyzing commitments to the Global Strategy since its launch in 2010. Click here to see the reports produced to date.
“Progress in Partnership”—the first progress report on the EWEC Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health – was launched on 18 July 2017, in the margins of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The report is the result of a long and careful process of consultation among EWEC partners. It is a critical tool for accountability and advocacy and provides a snapshot of achievements by countries and partners under the Every Woman Every Child Global Strategy, highlighting the power of partnership to accelerate progress in a complex and evolving development landscape.
To provide the latest status on progress towards the targets of the Global Strategy, the report highlights the latest available country data on 60 indicators, 34 of which come directly from the SDGs and an additional 26 taken from existing indexes and processes. This data, from WHO and other UN agencies, is included in an open-access online data portal launched in May 2017 on the World Health Organization’s Global Health Observatory website.
FINANCIAL
COMMITMENTS
Financial commitments can be aimed at mobilizing domestic resources, or at supporting governments and other key actors in a country to implement plans to improve the health of women and children. For example:
Type of Commitment
Scaling-up programming; e.g., expanding and enhancing successful women’s and children’s health public or private programs in countries; or taking innovative pilot programs to scale
Real Examples
CARE committed $1.8 billion over 5 years to expand successful maternal, newborn and child health programs, with a focus on empowering girls and women to increase gender equity, linking health systems and communities in systems of mutual accountability, and using innovative approaches to reach the most vulnerable populations. By expanding its maternal health programs into at least 10 additional countries—a 50 percent increase—and by scaling-up programs in countries where it currently operates, CARE aimed to aid more than 30 million women of reproductive age by the 2015.
POLICY
COMMITMENTS
Policy commitments can help develop appropriate processes and support advocacy to ensure women’s and children’s rights and access to health. For example:
Type of Commitment
Issue and policy advocacy; e.g., Engaging and contributing to advocacy campaigns and becoming a partner in an existing initiative to encourage the adoption of a Health Bill or to increase government spending on health; creating a new advocacy campaign that seeks to eradicate child marriage or improve use of health services by pregnant women; providing high-level spokespersons to amplify advocacy messages
Real Examples
The Body Shop committed over $2.25 million for their initiative, ‘Stop the Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People’, developed in partnership with ECPAT International, and launched in 60 countries. The Body Shop launched in December 2010 the first of 3 annual campaigns in partnership with UNAIDS.
Amnesty International pledged to advocate for equal and timely access to reproductive healthcare services for all women and girls and campaign for greater accountability for violations of reproductive health rights.
Type of Commitment
Political mobilization; e.g., advocating at the highest political levels to ensure women and children stay at the center of development, are prioritized in national programmes and resource allocation.
Real Examples
Partners in Population and Development committed to using diplomatic opportunities in the General Assembly, UN Agencies in Geneva and UN ESCAP through its diplomatic presence in promoting the goals of Every Woman Every Child.
Service and
Delivery Commitments
Service and delivery commitments can ensure that women and children have access to life-saving prevention, treatment and care when and where they need it and support health systems strengthening. For example:
Type of Commitment
Education and Training; e.g., pledging to strengthen the training of health professionals (midwives, clinical officers, health extension workers, etc.) by supporting pre-service education or continuous professional development (CPD) through the provision of health tutors and teaching materials in harmony with national health plans OR e.g., supporting the provision of health training tutors to expand the training capacity of health training institutions; providing supply chain management advice for hospitals and centres; or secondment of high-level advisors in the ministries of health, development and social welfare
Real Examples
John Snow, Inc. (JSI) committed through the Hand to Hand Campaign to supporting the availability of contraceptives in low-income countries through the provision of supply chain management technical assistance and training for national, regional, and global programs; to collecting accurate, timely information about the status of supplies, program requirements, and supply chain operations in over 20 countries, and sharing that information widely with stakeholders
Type of Commitment
Direct provision of products and services; e.g., supporting programs where health professionals support the delivery of services; donating medicines, vaccines, and health supplies following the WHO donation guidelines, where it is requested and where there is absorptive capacity; donating airtime for public service announcements
Real Examples
GSK committed to increase support for the WHO strategy to improve children’s health with a 5-year commitment to expand donations of albendazole medicine to 1 billion doses each year, an increase of 600 million doses each year.
Type of Commitment
Research; e.g., researching and developing new drugs; developing effective health information management systems; or researching the impact of different initiatives to improve the health of women and children
Real Examples
Johnson & Johnson committed to researching and developing a drug for tuberculosis with a new mechanism of action in 40 years, antiretrovirals to treat HIV and potentially prevent HIV transmission from pregnant women to their infants, as well as new technologies that may, in the future, prevent the transmission of HIV between adults.
Type of Commitment
Innovation for RMNCH; e.g., utilizing up to date technology to increase local access to care; improve the quality of health care services; or ensure effective management of the health care system
Real Examples
Infosys pledged to institute an Innovation Co-creation Lab to explore ways that technology can be used to solve critical maternal and child health challenges. The Innovation Co-creation Lab aimed to facilitate the convergence of the initiative’s task force members onto a common platform and drive joint innovation to develop affordable healthcare solutions.
Guidance for Making a Commitment
Commitments in support of Every Woman Every Child represent pledges to address a specific need outlined in the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, ultimately reducing preventable mortality and promoting the health and wellbeing of women, children and adolescents everywhere.
WHAT KINDS OF COMMITMENTS ARE ENCOURAGED?
All commitments advancing the goals outlined in the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030) are encouraged, in particular those which are sustainable (e.g. public private partnerships with sustainable business models), innovative (e.g. novel policies, new low-cost technologies, innovative partnerships or financing models), and have a long-term focus.
Commitments can be financial or non-financial and made by individual institutions or multi-partner-based coalitions. Most importantly, commitments to the Global Strategy should aim to have clear, measurable impacts. Each commitment maker will be required to report annually on progress related to implementing their commitment. More information about the reporting process is available once commitment makers create an account here.
Progress against government commitments are linked to intergovernmental and SDG accountability mechanisms, and will be recorded separately.
HOW CAN YOU MAKE A COMMITMENT?
Commitments should be defined as clearly as possible with an emphasis on measurability to support the tracking and monitoring processes, following the recommendations of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, which are reflected in the Global Strategy’s Unified Accountability Framework. Additional details about the commitment may be requested prior to approval.
Submissions are accepted all year, but will be grouped together for approval and announcement at key moments; approved commitments will be showcased on the Every Woman Every Child website.
COMMITMENT GUIDANCE PACK
Please note that Member States need not complete the application form referenced in these guidelines. Questions about Member State commitments should be directed to sgeverywomaneverychild@
Your commitment(s) will be submitted to the Every Woman Every Child Secretariat for consideration as a Global Strategy commitment. If you have any questions, please contact us at sgeverywomaneverychild@
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers general questions on the Global Strategy including its development, rationale and main pillars, as well as how it will be financed and implemented.
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