London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Holding ourselves accountable for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health – a question of data and political will.

Abstract: Launched in September 2010 by the UN Secretary-General, the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health has contributed to significant progress worldwide for women’s and children’s survival and health. In September 2015, an updated Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health was launched, sharpening the focus on critical population groups such as newborns, adolescents and those living in fragile and conflict settings. Commitments, both financial and non-financial, were made and continue to be made in support of the Global Strategy. But how do we ensure that these commitments are new and additional, are delivered, and have the impact that they are intended to have?

Holding commitment makers accountable is therefore a key challenge, requiring both up to date data and strong political will. The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, has been closely involved in these accountability processes to date, and continues to be a central stakeholder in the emerging global Unified Accountability Framework.

Speaker: Nebojsa Novcic is a member of the PMNCH Secretariat, who has among other responsibilities been involved in tracking commitments to the Global Strategy.

Nebojsa is a development economist, who has over the last 15 years worked in health, infrastructure and livelihoods sectors around the world. He has been with PMNCH for the last four years in Geneva and now in London, hosted by ECOHOST. Prior to joining PMNCH/ WHO, Nebojsa was briefly a banker and then a consultant for 10 years, advising numerous UN agencies, bilateral and multilateral donors, special initiatives, and national governments on design, implementation and evaluation of donor funded interventions.