Latest News on Every Woman, Every Child

It has been six months since the launch of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. Events held throughout March focused on assessing progress made since last September and developing the agenda for moving forward.

• New Addition: Stephen Sobhani joined the United Nations Foundation March 7, 2011 as the Director of Private Sector Engagement for the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. In this capacity, Stephen will build and lead a strategy to cultivate new private sector partnerships and commitments that advance the Global Strategy. Stephen joins the UN Foundation from Abbott Labs, where he was Director for Advocacy and Global Projects and responsible for relationship-building with external stakeholders in the international HIV/AIDS and public health arenas.

• Informal Stakeholder Workshop: On 15 March, the Health 4+ (five UN agencies: UNFPA, UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO and the World Bank, referred to as the H4+) hosted an informal stakeholder workshop to discuss the work plan for advancing the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health throughout 2011. Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA, opened the meeting that he co-hosted with Saad Houry, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and was chaired by Robert Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning. Participants from across the globe were present, representing civil society and non-governmental organizations, government, business and academia. For additional information about the meeting, please go here.

• Call for Comments: The deadline for comments on the final draft Papers from The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health’s two Working Groups is 15 April 2011. The Commission’s Online Community has been designed for this dialogue for individual /and or agency input into this process.

• 2nd Meeting of the Commission: The Second Meeting of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health will take place 1-2 May 2011 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. At the second meeting, commissioners will continue to create the framework for accountability for commitments pledged in support of the Global Strategy.  In the coming weeks, the Commission’s Working Groups will continue to analyze the technical dimensions that will form the core of the framework for accountability over the next two months for ongoing review by the Commissioners. A draft framework will be presented at the 1-2 May meeting.
  
  For more information on the Commission’s first meeting, please go here.