Nine members of the indepdent Expert Review Group (iERG) on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health are sharing their reflections on their 4-year term and their vision for the future of accountability and women's, children's and adolescent's health. iERG members: Richard Horton (Co-Chair), Joy Phumaphi (Co-Chair), Carmen Barroso, Zulfiqar Bhutta, Kathleen Ferrier, Sejal Hathi, Dean Jamison, Tarek Meguid, Miriam Were iERG recommendations (2012-2015): 2012 1. Strengthen the global governance framework for women’s and children’s health. 2. Devise a global investment framework for women’s and children’s health. 3. Set clearer country-specific strategic priorities for implementing the Global Strategy and test innovative mechanisms for delivering those priorities. 4. Accelerate the uptake and evaluation of eHealth and mHealth technologies. 5. Strengthen human rights tools and frameworks to achieve better health and accountability for women and children. 6. Expand the commitment and capacity to evaluate initiatives for women’s and children’s health. 2013 1. Strengthen country accountability: Ministers of Health, together with partners, must demonstrably prioritise and evaluate country-led, inclusive, transparent, and participatory national oversight mechanisms to advance women’s and children’s health 2. Demand global accountability for women and children:advocate for and win an independent accountability mechanism to monitor, review, and continuously improve actions to deliver the post-2015 sustainable development agenda 3. Take adolescents seriously: Include an adolescent indicator in all monitoring mechanisms for women’s and children’s health, and meaningfully involve young people on all policymaking bodies affecting women and children 4. Prioritise quality to reinforce the value of a human-rights-based approach to women’s and children’s health: make the quality of care the route to equity and dignity for women and children 5. Make health professionals count: Deliver an expanded and skilled health workforce, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which serves women and children with measurable impact 6. Launch a new movement for better data: Make universal and effective Civil Registration and Vital Statistics systems a post-2015 development target 2014 1. Develop, secure wide political support for, and begin to implement a global plan during 2014-15 to end all preventable reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent mortality for the 2016-2030 period—a new, broader, and more inclusive Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. 2. In 2015, create a results-based financing facility to support and sustain this new Global Strategy. 3. Between now and 2016, convene a Special Session of the UN General Assembly, led by the Secretary-General, to accelerate international collective action for women’s and children’s health—to align and harmonize the actions of partners, to promote leadership and stewardship, to ensure provision of global public goods, to manage externalities, and to provide direct country assistance. 4. In 2015, establish a Global Commission on the Health and Human Rights of Women and Children to propose ways to protect, augment, and sustain their health and wellbeing. 5. From 2015 onwards, hold a civil-society-led World Health Forum adjacent to the World Health Assembly to strengthen political accountability for women’s and children’s health. 6. In 2015, establish and fully resource a new Independent Expert Review Group to monitor, review, and propose actions to accelerate global and country progress towards improved women’s and children’s health during the period of the Sustainable Development Goals. 2015 1. Global accountability: By 2016, establish and implement a global independent accountability mechanism to monitor, review, and act on results and resources for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health, working across all 17 SDGs, reporting annually to the UN Secretary-General. 2. National accountability: By 2016, in all countries establish and implement transparent, participatory, democratic, and independent national accountability mechanisms to monitor, review, and act on results and resources for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health, with special attention to the translation of recommendations into action and reporting to Heads of State. 3. Accountability for sustainability: In 2017, convene a global ministerial summit to report on progress towards the goals both of the new Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health and the SDGs relevant to women, children, and adolescents; and to report on how national accountability informs and strengthens global accountability.

• published: 05 Nov 2015
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