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The newly endorsed 2026-2030 PMNCH Strategy is not simply a continuation of business as usual—it is a deliberate and necessary shift toward business unusual. In today’s complex global health landscape, where progress has slowed and inequities are widening, incremental change is no longer sufficient. This Strategy represents a bold call to disrupt old patterns, rethink partnerships, and center our work where it matters most: in the lived realities of countries, communities, and frontline health providers.
Responding to Country Realities: Listening First, Acting Second
As an obstetrician-gynecologist practicing in Kenya, I witness firsthand the daily challenges faced by women, children and adolescents — from inadequate access to essential services, to gaps in the health workforce, to the persistent social and economic determinants that shape health outcomes long before a patient enters a clinic. What makes this new PMNCH Strategy different is its unapologetic focus on country-driven priorities. It recognizes that global frameworks must start and end with the people on the ground: ministries of health, frontline health workers, local civil society, and the communities themselves.
The new Strategy’s Theory of Action places country ownership at the heart of its approach — enabling national actors to lead, while global partners support, align, and accompany. It acknowledges that countries are not passive recipients of global mandates, but active architects of solutions that respond to their unique contexts. This shift is both timely and urgent.
A Health Workforce Under Pressure: Confronting the Funding Reality
Yet, even as we embrace this business unusual approach, we must also confront the sobering reality that many countries face today: shrinking fiscal space for health, growing debt burdens, and an increasingly fragile funding landscape for essential services. The ripple effects on the health workforce are profound. Nurses, midwives, pediatricians, obstetricians and other frontline providers are being asked to do more with less, often without the resources, support or compensation they deserve.
These funding constraints are not abstract—they translate directly into staff shortages, burnout, and ultimately, avoidable loss of life. The PMNCH Strategy recognizes this and calls for greater investment in the health workforce wellness as critical enabler for their motivation and provision of quality of health services. It also highlights the urgent need for integrated and cross-professional collaboration across nursing, midwifery, obstetrics, pediatrics, and adolescent medicine — not as separate silos, but as interconnected parts of a continuum of care.
PMNCH’s Unique Role: Convening for Collective Action
In this increasingly fragmented environment, PMNCH occupies a unique and vital space. As the world’s largest multi-stakeholder platform for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, PMNCH has the trust and credibility to convene diverse actors — from governments to parliamentarians, from youth advocates to professional associations, private sector innovators to civil society organizations.
Importantly, PMNCH brings together the full spectrum of the health workforce to break down professional silos and foster true inter-professional collaboration. No one cadre alone can deliver the comprehensive care that women, children and adolescents need throughout their life course. Only by standing together — with mutual respect and shared purpose — can we achieve the transformational change this Strategy envisions.
Technology as the disruptive opportunity
Technology serves as a transformative force in the PMNCH Strategy 2025–2030, acting as a welcome disruption in advancing women's, children's, and adolescents' health. Digital tools like mobile health (mHealth) platforms enhance health literacy, access to essential health services, reducing health inequities, promoting gender responsiveness and facilitating real-time communication between patients and healthcare providers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics enable predictive modeling for disease outbreaks and resource allocation, optimizing health interventions and becoming more personalized.
Technology fosters collaborative advocacy through digital hubs, uniting stakeholders to share knowledge and strategies effectively. Investments in technological infrastructure not only improve health outcomes but also yield substantial economic returns, with studies indicating up to $71.4 in returns for every dollar invested in health technologies. By integrating technology into its core strategies, PMNCH aims to create resilient health systems that are equitable, efficient, and responsive to the needs of all populations.
A Culture of Learning: Grounded in Evidence, Informed by Experience
The Strategy’s emphasis on real-time, actionable data is another hallmark of its business unusual approach. Data must serve decision-makers, not sit in reports. Through its Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Framework, PMNCH is committed to driving a culture of accountability, transparency and continuous learning. But data alone are not enough if it remains untranslated. We must elevate the voices of those who live the realities behind the numbers — health workers, mothers, adolescents, community leaders — to ensure that our evidence base is both rigorous and relevant.
A Call to Action
As we move forward, I am inspired by the vision and courage embedded in this Strategy. PMNCH is not simply adjusting to a new normal — it is shaping a better today and tomorrow. One where equity, country leadership, inter-professional solidarity, and smart investments in the health workforce can drive a lasting transformative change towards health for all and development
In the next five years, let us work together — louder, bolder, more disruptive — to ensure that every woman, every child, and every adolescent not only survives, but thrives. That is the promise of business unusual. And that is the promise PMNCH is uniquely positioned to deliver.