The Partners’ Forum on Women’s and Children’s Health: From Pledges to Action

The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Partner's Forum gathered more than 1000 participants representing governments, non-profits, UN agencies, donors/foundations, businesses, academia, and health services of 50 countries together in Delhi over the weekend. The two days featured plenaries and break-out sessions highlighting success stories in financing, delivery and accountability; identifying innovative strategies, policies and programs that can be scaled up for change; and promoting consensus on the next steps in mutual accountability.

The main goal of the PMNCH Partner's Forum was to encourage ownership and action and to enable exchange, mobilization, and mechanisms for tracking progress on the commitments made during the UN General Assembly and at the launch of the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health earlier this year in September 2010. "We need to harmonize our efforts to support countries in making progress on maternal and child health, while seeking to reduce the burden they currently face in reporting to donors on multiple indicators in multiple formats," says PMNCH Chair Julio Frenk, MD, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is a multi-stakeholder process and we need to ensure mutual accountability."

The outcome document,  Delhi Declaration 2010 – “From Pledges to Action and Accountability,”  outlines the partners effort to find a common approach in the accountability process, a challenging endeavor given the many stakeholders involved. Hopefully, it is a step forward in the difficult process of building policy consensus throughout the continuum of care and towards ensuring women’s, newborns’ and children’s health, development and human rights.