 A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear colleagues and co-conspirators,
I am excited to share many important updates from the partnership! April was a busy month for all filled with global advocacy days, resource mobilization moments, and strategic meetings.
April started with World Health Day on the 7th. Partners engaged around this moment to highlight their Global Fund advocacy and the importance of saving lives by ensuring equitable access to health services. See the Twitter moment here. During World Immunization Week, the global health community garnered around World Malaria Day to emphasize the urgent need to expand access to existing vaccines.
If polio eradication is a marathon — the vaccine was first introduced in 1954 — then the finish line is in sight in 2022, but this is the hardest part of the race. The places where polio still circulates are the hardest to reach and require the greatest care in implementing vaccine campaigns. But the end is in sight, and the investment case recently released by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative shows that the price tag to eradicate polio, US$4.8 billion for the next five years, is much less than if we don’t: “needless paralysis and death and an open-ended need for billions of dollars in additional costs.” Moreover, the lessons learned in polio surveillance, preparedness and response, and accountability and oversight strengthen health systems.
The Secretariat team partnered with RESULTS UK to host an incredible bipartisan MP delegation to Washington, DC. The delegation engaged with global health leaders and other key international development and global health institutions such as the World Bank, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Global Financing Facility, and the Gates Foundation. Parliamentarians discussed the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for women and children, and collaborated with leadership at these institutions to catalyze a more effective and equitable response. Stay tuned for our upcoming blog!
ACTION partners and the Secretariat team engaged in deep advocacy around the GFF's #ReclaimTheGains event on April 22 to protect women and children and ensure they have access to health services by way of funding the GFF. Our advocacy work around the GFF will continue across the partnership, especially as we gear up for the pledging event this fall.
Check out our current job openings at the Secretariat here and don’t forget to engage with us on social media!
In solidarity,
Vineeta
Vineeta Gupta, MD, JD, LL.M
Director, ACTION Secretariat
   
|
|
The Power of Partnership
The ACTION Secretariat supported RESULTS UK in bringing a cross-party delegation of 5 Members of Parliament to Washington, DC, to participate in a set of strategic meetings and events aimed at engaging global health leaders and other key international development and global health institutions such as the World Bank, the U.S. State Department, the Global Financing Facility, the Gates Foundation, and others. During their 5-day trip, MPs met with Ambassador Karen Pierce, British ambassador to the U.S.; Richard Montgomery, executive director of the World Bank for the UK; Sheila Redzepi, VP of external affairs at the World Bank; as well as the Parliamentarian Network of the World Bank and IMF and representatives from PEPFAR. The MPs spoke at an event hosted by Search for Common Ground, met with Ministers of Health for Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone, toured the U.S. Capitol, and attended the GFF Resource Mobilization event. This trip was an opportunity for these MPs to discuss the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for women and children, and collaborate with leadership at these institutions to catalyze a more effective and equitable response from the UK.
|
|
|
#VaccinesWork
The ACTION partnership celebrated the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) investment case on April 26 for its US$4.8 billion resource mobilization campaign, and Germany announced they would host the pledging event at the World Health Summit in Berlin this October. The ACTION partnership live-tweeted the event across numerous accounts and helped amplify the message of #LongLifeForAll throughout World Immunization Week. GHA France published an article the day of the GPEI investment case launch to draw attention on the dangers of the disruption of routine immunizations and the most recent polio outbreaks. RESULTS UK organized and co-hosted three webinars in April and May with Gavi and others looking at the status of routine immunization services amidst the COVID-19 pandemic; the final webinar in the 3-part series, “Immunization Financing and Accountability,” was held on May 12.
|
|
GFF Advocacy
The GFF #ReclaimTheGains resource mobilization event, Don’t let COVID-19 turn back progress on the health of women, children and adolescents, took place on April 22. Hosted by the Canadian Embassy, the event was attended by the UK MP delegation and staff from RESULTS UK, RESULTS Educational Fund (REF), and the ACTION Secretariat. The event featured Solange Kone, executive director of ACTION partner ASAPSU, by pre-recorded video, and Joanne Carter, executive director of REF and chair of the ACTION partnership, spoke on the panel about the need for the world to focus on issues that remain underfunded while also responding to COVID-19. “We cannot be forced to decide between core, women’s, children’s, and adolescent health services and fighting COVID. That is a false choice because we need to do both,” said Joanne. She emphasized that investments in health equity and RMNCAH+N can help us deliver on PHC. Several ACTION partners worked in the weeks leading up the event to secure additional pledges that were announced at the event including from the governments of Canada, Japan, and the UK. See partners’ social media engagement here.
|
|
|
|
|
