.png?sfvrsn=6d0e27cd_1 "Partnership for Change - v7 (1)")
Global health leaders, decision-makers, financiers, and advocates gathered virtually on 10th December 2024 for the latest installment of the PMNCH Policy Dialogue entitled "READY, SET, IMPLEMENT! Improving financing to reduce mortality of women, children and adolescents and leverage benefits for societies." This dialogue highlighted the challenges seen in financing women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and emphasized the need for investments to accelerate the implementation of the WHA77 resolution.
The dialogue focused on solutions for countries. Experts shared evidence about the benefits of investing in women, children, and adolescents' health and well-being, such as the long-term and intergenerational benefits to women, their families and their communities. They also outlined opportunities for increased financing, and highlighted where existing financing gaps can be addressed in order to reduce deaths of women, children and adolescents, such as mechanisms to specifically support the health and well-being of adolescents who have historically been overlooked.
Looking at practical strategies for increasing investments, panelists explored solutions, including innovative and intersectoral financing mechanisms to advance women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and well-being and bring benefits for societies, such as harmonizing financing for health and advancing social protection. Panelists also discussed how to fairly fund health services for women, children, and adolescents, particularly in low-resource settings, including assessing the configuration of health systems to serve vulnerable populations.
Throughout the dialogue, panelists reaffirmed a clear call to action to increase investments to improve women’s children and adolescents’ health and well-being, and accelerate progress toward achieving SDG 3.1 and 3.2.
“We know healthy women, healthy adolescents and healthy children, lead to stable families and resilient communities. This is why it is now we must invest in health care. Financing and resources are a big part of what we need. In Sierra Leone we have been framing it to see spending on health not as an expenditure but as an investment in national development.
We must also make sure that these resources that are generated and optimized, actually reach the most vulnerable members of the populations – women, girls, adolescents, marginalized communities, those in conflict zones, those in rural areas. We have to be deliberate with these efforts.”
Honorable Dr. Jalikatu Mustapha, Deputy Minister II, Ministry of Health & Sanitation - Sierra Leone
“They may not be easy discussions to have, but they are essential discussions to have.
Overall, the opportunities are there. Many of the things that need to be done to support equity enhancing investments are not new. It is important for the financiers to look in the mirror, just as it is absolutely essential for the countries themselves to take more responsibility for financing and organizing with domestic resources, those equity enhancing investments.”
Olusoji Adeyi, President, Resilient Health Systems