Strategy for health 2016-2030
Tremendous progress in maternal and child health has been achieved over the past two decades. The global under-five mortality rate has dropped 53 per cent since 19901 and global maternal mortality has fallen by 44 per cent over the same time period.2 Despite these achievements, inequities rema...
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| Format: | Other |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
UNICEF, new york
2021
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| Online Access: | http://nkhokwe.kuhes.ac.mw:8080/handle/20.500.12845/209 |
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Add Tag | Summary: | Tremendous progress in maternal and child
health has been achieved over the past two
decades. The global under-five mortality rate
has dropped 53 per cent since 19901 and global
maternal mortality has fallen by 44 per cent
over the same time period.2 Despite these
achievements, inequities remain both among
and within countries. In addition to a
continuing communicable disease burden,
incidence and prevalence of
non-communicable causes of death and
disability are unacceptably high in low- and
middle-income countries. Furthermore, the
contexts in which children live are changing.3
Children in 2030 will live in a world that is older,
more urban and more interconnected. With
fertility rates dropping and life expectancies
rising, children’s share of the world’s population
will decline and dependency ratios will increase.
At the same time, income growth will shift
children into wealthier, but not necessarily
healthier, environments. State fragility is also
expected to persist in countries that struggle
with extreme poverty and weak governance.
In addition, emergencies, including public
health emergencies and those stemming from
environmental causes, are expected to increase
in frequency.4
In recognizing these trends and defining a
vision for the future, the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) include a call to
“ensure healthy lives and promote well-being
for all at all ages” through ending mortality from
conditions covered by the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), addressing
emerging issues such as non-communicable
diseases (NCDs) and achieving universal health
coverage. To support achievement of these
goals, the United Nations Secretary General
launched the Every Woman Every Child (EWEC)
Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and
Adolescents’ Health, expanding the focus from
the MDG era on ending preventable deaths
(“Survive”) to also ensuring health and
well-being (“Thrive”) and expanded enabling
environments (“Transform”).
Guided by the SDGs and the Global Strategy,
as well as the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) and the Convention on the
Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW),5 UNICEF envisions a
world where no child dies from a preventable
disease and all children reach their full potential
in health and well-being. For the initial five-year
period from 2016-2020, UNICEF’s Strategy for Health (hereafter called “the Strategy”) sets two
overarching goals:
1 End preventable maternal, newborn and
child deaths
2 Promote the health and development of
all children
To achieve these goals, the Strategy considers
the health needs of the child at all life
stages. It highlights the need for intensified
efforts to address growing inequities in health
outcomes, including a particular focus on
addressing gender-specific needs and barriers
that may determine whether boys and girls are
able to reach their full potential in health and
well-being.
Recognizing the diversity of contexts in
which UNICEF operates, the Strategy provides
flexibility for UNICEF country offices to tailor
their approaches. That said, in all contexts, it
emphasizes the importance of multi-sector
approaches to enhance child development and
address underlying causes and determinants
of poor health outcomes. It aims to shift UNICEF
from vertical disease programmes to
strengthening health systems and building
resilience, including calling for better
integration of humanitarian and development
efforts and encouraging risk-informed
programming in all contexts. This means
development programmes should anticipate
risks and deliberately build systems that can
flexibly respond to changing circumstances.
In addition, emergency programmes, including
for public health emergencies and outbreaks,
should be designed to “build back better” or
enact reforms that make the health system
more effective even after the disaster has
passed.
In order to increase focus and coherence
across health programmes, the Strategy
identifies three approaches:
l addressing inequities in health outcomes;
l strengthening health systems, including
emergency preparedness, response and
resilience;6 and
l promoting integrated, multi-sectoral
policies and programmes.
These three approaches should underpin all
of UNICEF’s programming and engagement in
the health sector. It calls on country offices to
choose from a bounded set of actions in order
to concentrate resources, improve the
consistency and quality of its health
programmes, and achieve greater impact
for children.
To reinforce UNICEF’s recognized leadership
role in equity, as well as the organization’s
potential to design and implement integrated,
multi-sector policies and programmes, the
actions seek to reinforce UNICEF’s mandate to
advocate for the child’s right to health by
bringing deep field experience to the policy
table at global, regional and national levels.
The Strategy also identifies areas where UNICEF
should only engage on an exceptional basis,
focusing on its comparative advantage and
leaving space for other actors to lead, which
may bring better results.
Finally, the Strategy aims to build on
UNICEF’s significant experience and history
of action for child survival, while evolving to
meet the changing needs of children.
This means retaining the emphasis on maternal,
newborn and child survival, particularly in lower
capacity contexts, while adapting to a shifting
disease burden and complex health
architecture. |
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