Global Leaders Network for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health (GLN) and participating Ministers of Health and Finance, have convened to advance a shared agenda to strengthen sustainable and diversified financing for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health.
The event was held in partnership with the Women’s Health and Economic Empowerment Network (WHEN) and the Partnerships for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, on the margins of the World Bank–IMF Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. and shared with the Ghana News Agency.
The communiqué recognises that the GLN Heads of State and Government have made a political commitment to advancing the health and well-being of women, children, and adolescents.
“As ministers responsible for public resource stewardship, we commit to translating that political commitment into financing solutions.”
“We meet at a moment of significant pressure on global health financing. Official development assistance is declining at a pace that threatens to reverse decades of progress. Rising debt burdens, demographic pressures, and competing national priorities constrain fiscal space in many of our countries. At the same time, the health needs of our populations continue to grow, and the consequences of inaction fall most heavily on women, children, and adolescents,” it said.
“Maternal and newborn mortality, adolescent health outcomes, access to sexual and reproductive health services, surgery, and women’s cancer care all remain areas of urgent concern, and all are sensitive to fluctuations in both domestic and external financing,” it said.
The group said the current health financing landscape compels us to think differently about how health systems are financed and how resources are allocated with sustainable financing requiring the strategic alignment and structuring of concessional, public, and private capital to mobilize and scale health sector investments.
It indicated today, through the GLN’s Financial Diplomacy Series, we will collaborate with WHEN and invited experts to structure these blended financing solutions with development finance institutions, the private sector, and governments around country-led investment priorities.
Strengthening national health insurance systems and expanding financial protection are equally essential to reducing out-of-pocket expenditures and preventing catastrophic health spending, as these burdens fall heavily on the most vulnerable populations, including women and adolescents, particularly those in the informal sector.
“We therefore call on our partners, development finance institutions, the private sector, and the international community, to align behind these priorities and to act with the urgency the moment demands.”
GNA
