Government leaders, members of civil society, the UN, academia, the private sector from across the world participated at the two-day virtual event Lives in the Balance and spoke out aboutthe devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health, and unveiled targeted, time-bound commitments for focused action.

 

The Lives in the Balance event attended by more than 1000 global citizens, was organized by The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn& Child Health (PMNCH) a multi-constituency partnership hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), together with the CORE Group, the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children, and Adolescents, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Key Speakers included Anuradha Gupta, CEO, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; Lopa Banerjee, Chief of the Civil Society Section at UN Women; VanditaMorarka Founder & CEO, One Future Collective, India besides Helen Clark - former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Board Chair of PMNCH, Mia Mottley - Prime Minister, Barbados, Michelle Bachelet - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, BorgeBrende - President, World Economic Forum, Jennifer Klein - Executive Director, White House Gender Policy Council, USA.

“COVID-19 has exacerbated underlying inequities, with vulnerable populations that are already living on the margins and are so often bereft of basic health services being hardest hit. The knock-on impact of the pandemic on childhood vaccination in lower income countries has been devastating, with millions of children missing out on timely, life-saving immunizations,” said Anuradha Gupta, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 

At the previous “Lives in the Balance” meeting in December 2020, ten national governments including India had made a pledge of $20.6 billion and issued statements describing their national and ODA commitments to prioritizing women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in COVID-19 response plans. India had pledged $2 billion out of $20.6 billion with an enhanced focus on women, children, adolescents and the most vulnerable. 

“India is the second most populous country in the world and we are a large country of diverse terrain, diverse languages and diverse challenges. Therefore, any public health intervention must ensure that no one is left behind. Comprehensive efforts and collective advocacy are needed to ensure availability of substantially enhanced financial resources for this noble cause,” Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Government of India  had said during the Lives in Balance Meeting in in December 2020.

These commitments respond to rising need. Given that progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health was already off track by some 20 per cent before the crisis, the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need for dedicated action for the most vulnerable.

“Taken together, the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 have rolled back decades of global effort, and threaten to disrupt the future trajectory for progress and development massively”, said Helen Clark, Board Chair of PMNCH and former Prime Minister of New Zealand. “COVID-19 is deepening and magnifying social inequalities compounded by ethnicity, gender, income, geography, and other factors. We must act now, not just to protect progress previously made, but also to work towards a world that is far more equitable than the one that existed before the pandemic.”

A seven-point Call to Action on COVID-19, backed by PMNCH’s 1,000-member platform, seeks to protect and prioritize the rights and health of women, children, and adolescents during the COVID-19 response and recovery. The Call seeks to strengthen investment, policies, and services for the recovery of health services, as well as protection of rights and future socio-economic resilience.  The statements, aligning with the PMNCH Call to Action, outlined a significant array of efforts to improve SRHR, gender equality, service quality, and adolescent health and well-being, among other priorities.  

Global Health 50/50 reports thatmore than 80 per cent of all COVID-19 health-related activities implemented by assessed global health institutions have failed to take gender into account in programme design.  Women, who according to WHO make up 70 per cent of the global health and social workforce and bear the largest share of COVID-19 infections among health workers, hold only 25 per cent of senior positions in national COVID-19 response leadership teams. The next round of national and ODA commitments, aligned with the PMNCH Call to Action on COVID-19, will be announced in September 2021.