PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

Transcription

1 PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

2 Introduction and background Every woman, newborn, child and adolescent has a right to health, and healthy populations are central to sustainable development. The health of women, newborns, children and adolescents is intrinsically linked to bringing about the transformative change needed to shape a more prosperous and sustainable future for all. For instance, for every dollar spent on key interventions for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH), about US$ 20 in benefits could be generated. 1 Thus, sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) is essential to ending extreme poverty and promoting development and resilience. Tremendous progress has been made in the last 15 years. 2,3 The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era saw a near halving of maternal and child mortality, but more remains to be done to: (i) end preventable mortality and morbidity, including in areas neglected by the MDGs such as stillbirths, newborn and adolescent health; (ii) improve health and wellbeing, shifting from a focus on mortality reduction to a focus on creating an enabling environment for health and transforming societies so that women, children and adolescents everywhere can realize their rights to the highest attainable standards of health and well-being, including through Universal Health Coverage (UHC) which prioritizes SRMNCAH; and (iii) ensure that every woman, every child and every adolescent everywhere has the same opportunity to thrive and transform. The survival, health and well-being of women, children and adolescents are a central element of the new Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDGs). The Every Woman, Every Child Global Strategy for Women s, Children s and Adolescents Health 5 (the EWEC Global Strategy) provides a guide for accelerated progress in SRMNCAH, and a roadmap for the achievement of the related SDGs over the next 15 years. The EWEC Global Strategy serves as the basis for all messaging defined in this advocacy and communications strategy. Abundant evidence exists on we know what to do to improve health outcomes. To achieve our goals of ending all preventable deaths within a generation and ensure their well-being, we know that the care received by women, children, newborns and adolescents must be integrated within health services that all can use 6. For instance, if women can plan their families, they are more likely to space their pregnancies; if they space their pregnancies, they are more likely to have healthy newborns; if their newborns are healthy, they are more likely to flourish as children. And if adolescents realize their rights to health and well-being, they can attain their full potential as adults because when health improves, their life chances improve across every measure. Investing and scaling up quality of and coverage of care of MNCH would prevent 65% of child deaths, 62%of maternal deaths, and 46% of stillbirths 7. The critical window around childbirth, and the first week after, requires particular focus in order to prevent maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity, to prevent stillbirths and complications of prematurity and to improve health and development 1 WHO, PMNCH, University of Washington (2013). A Global Investment Framework for Women s and Children s Health: Advocacy Brochure. Geneva, Switzerland; 2 WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank, UN Population Division (2015). Trends in maternal mortality ; 3 UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN-DESA Population Division (2015). Levels and trends in child mortality; 4 UN Sustainable Development Goals; 5 The Global Strategy for Women s, Children s and Adolescents Health ; 6 The Global Strategy for Women s, Children s and Adolescents Health ; 7 Bhutta et al 2014 Lancet Every Newborn Series; PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

3 outcomes for all. Inversely, efforts to achieve the goals for maternal and child survival also help prevent prematurity and stillbirths, therefore improving health and development outcomes for all. Advocacy and communications are critical to prioritizing policy and financial attention to women s, children s and adolescents health; ensuring that all stakeholders have access to the latest evidence; and encouraging stakeholders to play their role in improving health outcomes. Advocacy focused on accountability is also critical to ensuring that commitments are fulfilled and that progress is sustained. Advocacy and communications around women s, children s and adolescents health over the past 10 years has resulted in great successes, particularly at the global level. We now need to build on this solid foundation and maintain the global community s focus on health while, at the same time, continue to support countries to make and implement commitments. The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (the Partnership) is a global health alliance founded in 2005 that brings together the perspectives of nearly 740 partners from 10 constituencies into coordinated action. This advocacy and communications strategy for the Partnership for the years will drive our focus. PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

4 Reflections on advocacy and communications at the Partnership: 2010 to 2015 PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

5 What has worked The Partnership s approach to advocacy and communications over the past five years has evolved in tandem with changes in the development landscape and has achieved successes, despite the inherent challenges of coordinating 740 different partners. In 2010, recognizing the lagging progress around MDGs 4 and 5 on child and maternal health respectively, the Partnership focused its efforts on generating high-level political priority for women s and children s health using global and regional level fora. Successes during this period included the launch of the EWEC Global Strategy in 2010 (see Box 1, Annex 1) and collaborations with institutions such as the African Union to generate high level political dialogue and resolutions on maternal, newborn and child health (see Box 2, Annex 1). While these efforts generated political support, as reflected in commitments shared at the global level, little support was provided directly to country partners to stimulate advocacy efforts to support similar commitments in-country. Additionally, nationallevel partners were insufficiently informed on commitments made, and were therefore not engaged in advocacy to translate commitments into action. In particular, insufficient support was provided to community-led organizations to deliver at the grassroots level. This remains part of our unfinished agenda. In subsequent years, advocacy and communications continued to generate commitments for the EWEC Global Strategy by focusing political priority and financing for neglected areas across of the RMNCH Continuum of Care 8,9. In practical terms, this was demonstrated through the development of targeted action plans and initiatives. For example, the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) (see Box 3, Annex 1) was launched following the realization that newborn mortality was falling at a slower rate than to child mortality reduction. Similarly, Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) focused on reducing maternal mortality. Both ENAP and EPMM were developed through partnership mechanisms and have mobilized efforts to advance maternal and newborn health. Around the same time, multi-stakeholder advocacy and communications processes were also put in place to support the reduction of preterm births and stillbirths. To accelerate progress towards the unfinished agenda, in , Partnership members focused more on regional and national efforts. Through regional workshops on budget advocacy and some support to national civil society coalitions for aligned advocacy, the Partnership sought to catalyse in-country activity to accelerate the implementation of commitments to the EWEC Global Strategy. Partnership members also shifted the discourse around social accountability by spurring over 100 citizens hearings in countries in 2015 bringing the voices of people to bear on health planning in the local and global fora. From , at the global level, the Partnership also mobilized its membership to advocate for sustained attention for women, children and adolescents at the global level through the Post-2015 Working Group 10 and support for the EWEC Global Strategy consultations. A parallel development over these years was the shift in the women s, children s and adolescent health community from a focus on the MNCH continuum of care to one on interventions across the life course from birth through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. 8 WHO (2005). World Health Report. Making Every Mother and Child Count (chapter 5, p. 89). Geneva, Switzerland; 9 Kerber KJ, de Graft-Johnson JE, Bhutta ZA, Okong P, Starrs A, Lawn JE. (2007). Continuum of care for maternal, newborn, and child health: from slogan to service delivery, Lancet 13;370(9595): For more information on the Working Group and related outcomes, please see PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

6 Box 2 Key PMNCH achievements, as identified by the External Evaluation of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health: Final report 22 July Significant increase in resources and results for RMNCH, partly due to the consensus-building efforts by PMNCH amongst all the alliances and partners seeking to contribute to the implementation of the UN Secretary General s Global Strategy for Women s and Children s Health, which emanated from the Every Woman, Every Child movement. 2. A growing consensus for action on the Continuum of Care, whereby PMNCH s convening power at the highest political levels is contributing to a more cohesive message, in particular leading to the Global Investment Framework for Women s and Children s Health* and the current shaping of the post-2015 agenda and beyond. 3. Increased harmonization of global advocacy with PMNCH bringing attention to neglected parts of the Continuum of Care, e.g. the successful campaign to focus attention on early marriage or newborn health leading to the Every Newborn Action Plan. 4. Increased global visibility and understanding of the maternal and child health issues with PMNCH contributing to significant media campaigns, for example the Born Too Soon campaign.** 5. Increased global commitment and accountability tracking with critical contributions from PMNCH. 6. Increased levels of interaction between the health care constituency members due to PMNCH bringing together all practice groups in the Continuum of Care. * For more information on the Global Investment Framework for Women s and Children s Health, please see ** For more information, see Born Too Soon the Global Action Report on PreTerm Birth; March of Dimes, PMNCH, Save the Children, WHO A 2014 external evaluation of the PMNCH highlights the Partnership s strength in several areas, notably its convening power at the highest political level; its consensus building efforts and its contribution to achieving a greater focus on accountability and tracking as successes. The evaluation also noted the efforts to increase awareness and media focus on maternal and child health issues. These are all strengths which this new advocacy and communications strategy should continue to build on while broadening the focus from the continuum of care to the life course in line with the updated EWEC Global Strategy. The specifics of how this will be done are outlined below. Challenges faced by the Partnership in its advocacy and communications The Partnership has faced challenges in both how it has approached and implemented its advocacy and communications. Acknowledging these challenges, and recognizing the changing development landscape and the need to reach out to non-health actors, has resulted in a strengthened strategy moving forward. Interviews were conducted in 2015 by an independent consulting firm to explore perceptions of the PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

7 Partnership s communications 11 to inform the development of a 9-month communications roadmap. These yielded useful findings which are outlined in Box 3 below. Box 3 Stakeholder perceptions of the Partnership, identified through key informant interviews for the development of the PMNCH 9-Month Communications Roadmap Need to remain aligned with changes in the global health debate: as the global health focus moves from finishing the MDG agenda to implementing the SDGs and beyond, the Partnership s scope of work will need to adapt accordingly. To remain current and ensure constant clarity of messages, the Partnership should move from focusing on individual target groups in its messaging (e.g. adolescents, newborns, etc.), and rather seek to become better known for its approach (i.e. a focus on common issues across the life course, driving evidence-based change, and the other defining arguments outlined in the EWEC Global Strategy). Need to drive the agenda to focus attention on issues which are not recognized or prioritized: partners expressed concern that the current advocacy approach puts too much focus on the lowest common denominator. Advocacy should be stepped up to drive the agenda on SRMNCAH, notably on areas of priority to the Partnership and where it can add value such as quality, equity and dignity (QED) as well as neglected areas. A mapping process has started to identify such issues (see Box 5). The activities defined in the advocacy and communications objectives bring these issues to the forefront of the global health and development agenda for SRMNCAH. Need for clear messaging on SRMNCAH: messaging has been process focused and sometimes diluted because of the breadth of the issues included across the life course. The Partnership needs to develop clear advocacy messages and objectives that can be easily communicated by its membership and acted upon to produce change. This should include both intra-membership messaging, with more frequent, stronger, clear communication to members, as well as clearer, stronger external messaging towards the wider health and development community. Having clearer messages and joining forces will give the Partnership a more recognizable brand as well as amplify its voice to reach a wider audience. Unifying voice for SRMNCAH: The Partnership s visibility in traditional media and social media is low when compared to other organizations working in the same field. Stakeholders also consistently commented that they would like to see and hear more from the Partnership. While they consider its behind-the-scenes role to be commendable, they see a window of opportunity for the Partnership to also speak out and take the lead. This should include both increased use of written media, as well as greater use of key events or convenings. Increasing the voice of the Partnership will help to convince members to view the Partnership as a vehicle to expand their reach and enhance the credit they get for their initiatives. Clarifying the niche and value add of the Partnership: While the Partnership is present in the media, online and stakeholder debate about maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, it is not clear specifically what role the Partnership plays. The Partnership is frequently talked about in conjunction with other organizations, and by other organizations spokespersons, thereby giving the impression that its own identity and voice isn t always clear and that its messages risk being diluted. There should be a greater focus on communicating the Partnership s added value, notably in addressing common issues 11 PMNCH. PMNCH 9-Month Communications Roadmap Geneva. PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

8 along the life course, as well as neglected issues such as adolescent health and humanitarian settings. Creativity and engagement: In comparison to other organizations in the SRMNCAH space, the Partnership produces fewer materials. In addition, words like stale were used by stakeholders to describe the materials. Examples included the Partnership s approach to media relations and social media, with stakeholders calling for more modern and engaging content, as well as making the most of social platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. Being selective in communication, implementing it strongly and creatively, will ensure that the Partnership really stands out. More engaging content, along with focused messaging, will also help to clarify the value of the Partnership. Moving forward in a changing setting The development landscape has changed, the SRMNCAH landscape has grown more complex and the aims for SRMNCAH have shifted. This has resulted in important changes in the vision and mode of operation of the Partnership. The Partnership s Strategic Framework outlines a new vision as follows: A world in which every woman, child and adolescent in every setting realises their rights to physical and mental health and wellbeing, has social and economic opportunities, and is able to participate fully in shaping prosperous and sustainable societies. The Partnership s mission is: To increase the engagement, alignment and accountability of partners, by creating a multi-stakeholder platform that will support the successful implementation of the EWEC Global Strategy for Women s, Children s and Adolescents Health, enabling partners to achieve more together than any individual partner could do alone. The new Strategic Framework calls on Partnership members and the Partnership as a whole to support the achievement of the EWEC Global Strategy goals. Box 4 Partnership focus areas and strategic objectives for as outlined in the Partnership Strategic Framework Focus areas Accelerate action on the unfinished business of the MDGs, with a focus on equity to sustain efforts in countries that have fallen behind and to address the most marginalized, excluded and high-burden populations and settings; Accelerate action and gather the learning and evidence needed to tackle frontier and other critical challenges: including stillbirths, fulfilling SRHR needs and rights of all, meeting adolescents unique and varied needs, and inspiring action everywhere, in particular in humanitarian and fragile settings; and Build knowledge and experience with intersectoral collaboration among partners and related sectors to address the drivers of ill health and inequity The Partnership s Strategy sets out the following strategic objectives SO1 Prioritize engagement in countries: At the service of countries, focusing on populations and places with the highest burden, greatest need and most inequity SO2 Drive accountability: Nurture a culture of open accountability to drive purposeful PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

9 engagement & sustained commitment, tracking progress and holding each other to account SO3 Focus action for results: Drive advocacy and share learning to accelerate and focus action and financing to deliver the Global Strategy for results SO4 Deepen Partnerships: Engage and align a broad and inclusive range of partners to deliver the full ambition of the Partnership for action and accountability Leveraging engagement across global, regional and national levels One of the major achievements over first 10 years of the Partnership has been achieving global attention on MNCH issues, notably at the political level. Recognizing the changing landscape described above, and the Partnership s unique position to act as an advocate across the life course, the Partnership now seeks to integrate its more traditional focus on global-level analysis, advocacy and accountability with an approach that supports advocacy in countries and better leverages the wealth of resources in its membership, in support of SO1 Prioritize engagement in countries. This includes greater focus on supporting the needs of national and grassroots-level organizations, while continuing to advocate at all levels for appropriate and context specific policies, delivery, funding and accountability. Global In light of the new mandate to work in priority countries, this advocacy and communications strategy acknowledges the need to mutually reinforce activities on the national, regional and global levels around common messages, approaches and initiatives across the life course. Further details of this approach are outlined in the objectives below. The Partnership s advocacy and communications strategy seeks to National ensure that there is sustained attention around key SRMNCAH issues, to ensure that these receive the attention they require in a changing global health and development landscape. Working across the three levels will help to ensure that messages and positive action are mutually reinforcing both across and between countries and partners, and across the level they are engaged in. Regional Recognizing earlier gaps, the advocacy strategy must anchor its initiatives in priority countries, 12 in support of their national SRMNCAH priorities. This should be done in consultation with a local multi-stakeholder platform, if such a platform exists, and working in close collaboration with national civil society coalitions and/or partners. The Partnership will, in these cases, need to equip its national members with the tools to advocate for those interventions required to make progress on commitments to SRMNCAH. Partners working at national level will encourage increased engagement and collaboration among PMNCH members to ensure joined-up advocacy at national level. SRMNCAH requires governments to build UHC and the Partnership should support this to make sure it prioritises SRMNCAH. The Partnership also recognizes the importance of developing advocacy materials and engagement in other languages (e.g. French at a minimum). 12 Countries prioritized in 2016 include a mix of Global Finance Facility (GFF) and non-gff countries as follows : Afghanistan, Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Gambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone; PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

10 At the regional level, the Partnership will continue its focus on advocacy towards key regional institutions, as well as share experiences at inter- and intra-regional fora. For its global level advocacy, the Partnership will over the next 3 years also need to define for its membership why joined-up advocacy is important and elucidate the benefits to partnering in support of joint awareness-raising, policy and finance initiatives. It will also need to identify mechanisms to keep its membership adequately informed and engaged, and particularly those members that do not have access to more modern means of communication, such as global teleconferences and electronic newsletters. This will enable a truly partner-centric approach characterized by partners implementing commonly identified activities. The Partnership advocacy and communications vision and strategy for Building this new advocacy and communications strategy has been an interactive process. The Partnership has first taken stock of lessons learnt from the previous strategy, as described above. A Working Group has led the process, with support from the Partnership Secretariat and active outreach to other stakeholders including the Board, Executive Committee and an online survey which gathered responses and insights from 141 partners. Based on the inputs received, the Partnership s advocacy and communications strategy takes into account core assumptions including: Partnership messages and activities should coalesce around the messages and priorities derived from the EWEC Global Strategy for Women s, Children s and Adolescents Health The advocacy and communications strategy derives from the Partnership Strategic Plan 13 and Business Plan and their focus areas Advocacy led by the Partnership is premised on the assumption that we can achieve more together than any individual partner could do alone The Partnership will focus on areas of added-value, building on the existing work, investments and expertise of all partners The value-add approach of the Partnership recognizes the importance of focusing on coordination, consensus-building and dissemination of information between partners. The Partnership will be a one-stop-shop for current and trending information collected from PMNCH partners. Advocacy work will seek to ensure there is sustained attention to the most relevant and/or most neglected areas in SRMNCAH Advocacy will be evidence-based, drawing on information available from partners, in particular the Partnership s academic, research and training institution constituency, as well as lending support to call for the generation of new evidence where required The strategy is predicated on the notion of the life course from birth through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. Campaigns will carefully reflect opportunities to highlight specific 13 PMNCH Strategic Plan in Support of Every Woman, Every Child; PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

11 issues where these need to be addressed, but integration across the life course continues to be the Partnership guiding principle, and this needs to be embedded as countries move towards the adoption of UHC. The adoption of the SDGs, advancements in technology and the shift towards the inclusion of citizen s voices has intrinsically changed the way the Partnership works, bringing global and local communities and actors closer together, calling for transparent collaboration across sectors and constituencies and strengthening multi-stakeholder accountability The Partnership notes leadership changes in global development and global health and will seek to optimize new opportunities. For example, 2017 will see a change in both the UN and WHO leadership, offering a chance to revitalize or develop new long-term champions This advocacy and communications strategy, and the associated proposed work plan detailed below, is to be implemented by PMNCH partners and organizations engaged in the Every Woman Every Child movement and other related movements such as Family Planning 2020, Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality, and Every Newborn with support from the Partnership Secretariat. Only together can we deliver on the 2030 Agenda. The main focus of the Secretariat will be to ensure that the Partnership convenes, communicates and equips partners to achieve coordinated advocacy goals, rather than implementing large scale global or national advocacy campaigns directly. Box 5: Results from the PMNCH survey on partners advocacy and communications priorities In August 2016, an e-survey was distributed by the Partnership Secretariat to all 740 PMNCH members seeking feedback from partners on members advocacy priorities and communications channels. A total of 141 partners responded, representing a 19% response rate. The results of this survey have been among the several elements that have shaped this advocacy and communications strategy, as well as for prioritizing the focus areas for activity described below. A full description of the results is available in Annex 2. The following highlights how the findings have guided the choices in this strategy. Maternal and child health were clearly identified as the lead issues on which partners focus. Quality, equity and dignity (QED) were constantly raised as themes which must run through service delivery and beyond. Partners expressed concern about the absence of these, further validating the decision to focus initially on advocating for increased QED, initially using maternal and child health as focus areas. Other populations, notably adolescents, were identified as a growing theme which reinforces the importance of addressing the needs of these groups as part of this 3-year strategy. In terms of non-health issues, gender equality and women s empowerment were the most important non-health issue identified (56% of respondents). 52% placed nutrition next followed by education (42%), poverty (34%) and WASH (32%). This highlights the importance of working across sectors, bearing in mind the multisectoral SDG approach which frames development thinking today. Partners work fairly evenly across global, regional and national level, with a slight emphasis on the national level. However, their advocacy efforts are directed more towards NGOs, training institutions and donors / foundations. National policy makers are the target of only one quarter of advocacy efforts, highlighting the need to step up national-level advocacy significantly, either through coalitions of national partners or through case studies of lessons learnt in priority countries. Finally, social media platforms identified confirmed the importance of engaging on Facebook, while identifying YouTube as a potential medium for future expanded engagement. This strategy aims to contribute to joint ownership and accountability, and is based on the Partnership s Strategic Framework and the EWEC Global Strategy. It is structured into four focus areas. The focus areas PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

12 and related objectives take into account the human, financial and other resources of the Partnership Secretariat. The strategy assumes there is greater impact through a united Partnership, based on the complementary mandate, different roles and responsibilities of each Partner. It highlights the importance of encouraging collaboration, learning and consensus building between partners. These four focus areas for the advocacy and communications strategy are: SO3 Focus Area 1: Making change happen SO3 Focus area 2: Translating knowledge to action SO3 Focus area 3: Going digital SO3 Focus area 4: Maintaining women, children and adolescents in the media The first two of these focus on uniting the Partnership and its individual members around a set of core messages to support global advocacy efforts to keep SRMNCAH priorities on the global and national development agendas and to equip members with the latest evidence to support effective planning and implementation. The third and fourth focus on the process-related aspects of ensuring the Partnership optimizes its use of communications, developments in information and technology and its partnership base. In order to deliver on the collective advocacy objectives of the Partnership, a joint work plan will be developed. It will provide details of activities for the next 18 months are, and will be updated on a yearly basis. This work plan will align with and support the activities of the Partnership s other Strategic Objectives. SO3 Focus Area 1: Making change happen: The Partnership will provide leadership in advocacy for improved Quality of services, Equity and Dignity in access to SRMNCAH services for women, children and adolescents. Feedback from stakeholders, including the recent advocacy survey (see Box 5 above), indicates that improving QED is an important issue which must be addressed all along the life course. However, more work must be done to achieve this in practical terms. Thus, the strategy will at first focus on ensuring QED in services for women and babies, which have been identified as common advocacy issues for many partners. This advocacy initiative reflects the intrinsic value-add of the Partnership as the only multi-stakeholder alliance that brings partners together working across the life course from birth through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. It also builds on a current mandate to focus on achieving the unfinished business of the MDGs, and focuses on frontier issues that are not yet widely acknowledged, and for which there is no existing supporting initiative, movement or Partnership. The primary focus for advocacy initiatives for : Improve policies and financing for QED. This advocacy initiative will aim to generate policy and political commitments to QED at the global and regional levels, and to generate associated policy, programme and funding shifts in a limited number of countries including some priority countries of the Global Financing Facility (GFF) in support of Every Woman Every Child. This initiative will build on an ongoing WHO-led process to develop technical standards and guidelines for quality of care for maternal and newborn health, and ensure that these are widely known among PMNCH partners, building consensus in order to encourage partners to speak with one voice. This initiative will also support the integration of a growing number of related maternal and newborn advocacy efforts, such as the ENAP, EPMM, as well as advocacy efforts dedicated to midwifery, respectful care, PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

13 stillbirths, prematurity, birth defects, and breastfeeding. It will also support PMNCH partners to engage with their respective governments to ensure that SRMNCAH services become their first priority as they progress towards UHC. Key actors will include national political leaders, including heads of state and government, government ministers, members of parliament; civil servants from key ministries; health sector experts and leaders; representatives of women s associations; civil society leaders; global and regional SRMNCAH champions; representatives of development partners; members of the Partnership. It is important to engage those who are currently involved in health and SRMNCAH, as well as those who impact SRMNCAH but do not currently view their work through a QED or health lens. While considerable progress was made to improve maternal, newborn and child health during the MDG era, much more remains to be done. Under-five mortality dropped by 53% between 1990 and 2015, falling short of the goal of a two-thirds reduction. The biggest challenge to reducing under-five mortality remains newborns whom account for 45% of the 5.9 million deaths. 14 In addition, global stillbirth rates have been stagnant since million babies are stillborn each year, leaving families to grieve often unheard. Maternal deaths have seen a 44% decrease between 1990 and 2015 falling well short of the three-quarters target reduction. 16 In addition 225 million women remain without contraception. 17 Improved quality of maternal and newborn care, and greater access to care for those who need it, is central to achieving the unfinished business of the MDGs, and to meeting the survive targets of the EWEC Global Strategy. Addressing neglected issues: In addition to the overarching theme of QED, and ensuring sustained attention on this, there are a number of specialized neglected issues or populations who are currently the focus for partners or groups of partners but that have not yet garnered any wide-ranging attention. These so-called neglected issues have been identified by Partnership members as being highly important, and partners will therefore be encouraged and supported to coalesce around strategies to draw attention to these issues vis-à-vis appropriate audiences and contexts, i.e. where the issue has a greater impact on access to SRMNCAH services or the population is particularly large (e.g. adolescent populations in many countries). Examples of these neglected issues include: Improving policies and financing for the health of adolescents. 1.8 billion people today are aged between and the youth population is growing fastest in the poorest nations. 18 These young people provide enormous potential for economic and social progress. The right investments in the health of these young people can yield important demographic dividends. Yet in 2012, 1.3 million adolescents died from preventable or treatable causes. The leading cause of death for girls between the ages of are suicide and complications during pregnancy. Two and a half (2.5) million girls aged under 16 give birth annually and 15 million girls under the age of 18 are married every year. 19,20 14 Levels and trends in child mortality 2015, UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN-DESA Population Division; 15 Ending Preventable Stillbirths, The Lancet, 2016; 16 Trends in maternal mortality ,, WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank, UN Population Division; 17 WHO Fact Sheet on family planning / contraception : Fact Sheet 351 May 2015; 18 UNFPA (2014). State of the World Population Report; 19 WHO (2014). Health for the World s Adolescents: A second chance in the second decade; 20 UNFPA (2015). State of the World Population Report; PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

14 The EWEC Global Strategy recognizes adolescents as a critical target, but data on adolescent health remain sub-optimal, as do programmes and financing. The engagement of young people is crucial in decision-making processes at all levels, to inform governments and development partners on how to best address specific issues affecting and prioritized by young people themselves this meaningful youth engagement also lags. Members of the Partnership will be encouraged to support a coordinated movement for adolescents, with the leadership and meaningful engagement of the Adolescent & Youth Constituency to ensure policy and financing at the global level, and to support the development of comprehensive plans at the national level that are resourced. The Partnership will do this by enabling young people to advocate at all levels, take part in planning, implementation and monitoring processes and hold stakeholders to account. It will also work with partners to disseminate evidence for action. This evidence will build on the 2016 report of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing and the WHO-led Framework for Accelerated Action for Health among Adolescents (AA-HA), a guidance for countries on adolescent health in alignment with the EWEC Global Strategy. The AA-HA Framework is expected to be launched at the next session of the World Health Assembly in May Improving policies and financing in support of SRMNACH in humanitarian settings. A majority of maternal and child deaths take place in fragile settings. The Partnership will support the Every Woman, Every Child, Everywhere workstream, currently led by H.R.H Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan, to advocate for increased and improved funding for humanitarian aid; better coordination of humanitarian and development aid; better data in humanitarian settings; and the implementation of best practices to improve health outcomes in these settings. While the Partnership will focus its advocacy efforts on the above mentioned initiatives, it will nonetheless continue to provide a space for exchange on all issues related to the life course from birth through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. Priorities are to be defined by level of effort, with 80% of effort within the Partnership assigned to the above-mentioned campaigns and 20% given to advocacy on other issues. Advocacy efforts will take into account the relative impact of shining a light on an issue for which a solution is at hand (e.g. a policy change) versus emphasizing the interrelation between issues which must be addressed in a holistic manner. The approach will take into account the audience, opportunity and potential for impact. Communication efforts will aim to be bold in their messages and reach beyond the converted. The various initiatives in this focus area will seek to mobilize new partners and partnerships. It is important to engage those who are currently involved in health and SRMNCAH as well as those who impact SRMNCAH but do not currently view their work through a QED or health lens, such as the nutrition, WASH or education advocates and communities. One new financing initiative which the Partnership and its members will consider as a strategic opportunity is the Global Financing Facility (GFF). The Partnership played a key role in the consultation process for the GFF, which was set up to accelerate global efforts to end preventable maternal and child deaths and improve the health and quality of life of women, children, and adolescents by Housed at the World Bank, the GFF is a key financing platform of the EWEC Global Strategy. GFF countries are among the PMNCH priority countries, while several partners are engaged directly (e.g. as donors to GFF) and the Partnership is represented in the Investors Group. The Partnership will work with the GFF Secretariat to jointly advocate for multi-stakeholder engagement in the development of investment cases, increased and improved domestic resource mobilization, and innovative financing. PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

15 SO3 Focus area 2: Translating knowledge into action. Armed with the knowledge of what needs to be done to improve the health of women, children and adolescents, a critical role of the Partnership will be to ensure that policymakers, implementers and advocates have access to the latest evidence in order to develop and implement the most effective plans possible to address these needs. The Partnership will encourage the coordination, consensus-building and dissemination of relevant evidence to translate knowledge into action. It will ensure that existing research is presented in user-friendly materials (either existing from partners or adapted, as required) and disseminate these materials as widely as possible to support policy and programme change. The Partnership will also seek to work with research leaders to identify research gaps across the life course and advocate for financing to fill these gaps. Research should be defined, led and implemented by those partners best placed to do so. Specifically, the Partnership will: Increase use of data in policy and advocacy: for instance, taking the evidence from the Lancet Series and Commissions 21 as well as other research and partners inputs, this objective will focus on disseminating evidence and tools produced by partners to different audiences on questions such as what is the current coverage of essential packages along the life course ; how can these interventions be strengthened to increase coverage, equity, and quality of care, Which interventions within the life course would have the greatest impact?. The Partnership will focus on obtaining information from all partners at all levels for dissemination. Different approaches will need to be put in place to deliver this information, ranging from webinars that can provide drilldown sessions on particular topics, to events that can highlight a range of new evidence, to webbased platforms that can pull new resources from partner websites to be shared via . This 21 The Lancet Series relating to SRMNCAH include: Child Survival, 2003; Neonatal Survival, 2005; Maternal Survival 2006; Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2006; Maternal and Child Undernutrition, 2008; Child Development in Developing Countries, 2011; Stillbirths, 2011; Adolescent Health, 2012; Family Planning, 2012; Equity in Child Survival, Health, and Nutrition, 2012; Maternal and Child Nutrition, 2013; Every Newborn, 2014; Breastfeeding, 2016; Ending Preventable Stillbirths, 2016; Matenal Health, PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

16 focus on strengthening the communications platforms of the Partnership is the topic of the third and fourth advocacy objectives. Encourage and disseminate consensus around latest evidence on the life course: As the work of the Partnership has evolved to include more focus populations from MNCH continuum of care to the life course and as the evidence shifts, Partnership members, supported by the Secretariat, will need to update the essential interventions for RMNCH in line with the Global Strategy and emerging evidence. The Partnership Secretariat will play a critical role in convening a multiconstituency consultation process around this update. The Partnership s advocacy efforts will need to include awareness-building among stakeholders on the latest evidence and ensure widespread dissemination of these findings. Advocate for more research to fill existing SRMNCAH knowledge gaps. Building on the earlier strength of the Partnership s consensus-building efforts around key issues, partners will work together to identify priority areas for research, with a particular focus on how this will support the QED framework or neglected areas, such as sexual and adolescent health. It will also conduct advocacy on findings to encourage partners with the capacity and expertise in these areas, e.g. the Partnership s ART constituency, research institutes or national authorities, to undertake the aforementioned research and to raise financing for this research. The Partnership does not expect to fund research, but rather to generate consensus around the priority issues and advocate for collaborative research to address existing knowledge gaps. As has been noted, research is an essential component of the post-2015 or SDGs-related RMNCAH agenda. Advocating for research to inform policy through evidence is key and research funding should be commensurate with need. Among the types of research identified to scale up and accelerate progress in RMNCAH are research on: (i) measurement of the causes and levels of mortality and morbidity; (ii) vulnerable groups (i.e. migrant women, adolescents including younger adolescents, women in fragile settings); (iii) maternal and newborn outcomes; and (iv) indicators to measure quality; (v) and inequalities (i.e. pro-poor approaches to bridge the increasing inequity gap within and between countries) and policy implementation and accountability. Additionally, there is a need to focus on research aimed to provide LMICs with implementation models, depending on context (e.g. very low/medium/high coverage of facility delivery and other known and essential interventions, very high/low maternal mortality ratio) and scale up, including research that aims to better understand the patterns of socio-demographic, and health system's factors involved, and research on integration and linkages with other services beyond maternity care (nutrition services, HIV, malaria, and noncommunicable diseases). Advocacy to engage global stakeholders in providing continued support to generate evidence-based knowledge (tailored to different contexts and requiring different strategies) is crucial if we are to provide more effective and egalitarian care to women everywhere and to leave no one behind. Key actors to engage in this objective will include the Partnership s ART constituency members, global health and development agencies, research institutes, initiatives such as Countdown to 2030, professional associations of midwives, nurses and other health professionals; global and regional SRMNCAH champions; and civil society groups. The audiences for such information will include, inter alia, Partnership members, the Partnership Board and leadership; those delivering care; policymakers; health sector experts outside the SRMNCAH space; representatives of women s associations; and representatives of development partners. PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy

17 SO3 Focus area 3: Going digital. As indicated above, a major priority for the Partnership will be to change the discourse around SRMNCAH issues from a specialized debate to a wider, more multisectoral perspective to be championed beyond the health sector. This will require making information more easily available and more accessible to partners. The focus of this objective is on ensuring that the Partnership s communication role is more interactive and dynamic. This will include greater investment in existing and new communications tools from the existing e-blast to new ways of sharing information on events and partners expertise, for example through a more interactive website. It also comprises expanding the activities of the Partnership into new media, through greater use of social media tools for example. The Partnership will engage its Adolescent and Youth Constituency and others to help expand its social media presence. This objective will also call for a greater focus on information exchange and learning between partners, facilitated by Partnership media and communications tools. Investing in new media, as well as new approaches using existing sources, will also increase the potential for multi-channel dialogues between partners, and between partners and the Partnership Secretariat. Woven throughout the implementation of this objective will be the awareness of the expanded advocacy audience for the Partnership. Thus, information and communications activities will take into account the need to pitch information for a health audience, as well as advising partners on how to present information to non-health partners, such as Ministries of Finance, or advocates on related issues, such as education and nutrition. This objective is also based on the premise that partners are already producing a plethora of relevant information, and that the role of the Partnership will be to ensure that existing information is shared in the most effective way possible, and that information coming from partners in countries is disseminated to partners in other countries. This will require: PMNCH Advocacy and Communications Strategy