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Child and Adolescent Health and Development |
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Advocacy and partnership |
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Advocacy plays an important role in
increasing awareness among policy makers, public health programme
managers, academia, civil society, donors and communities about the
needs of children, the actions required to ensure that they grow and
develop healthy to the best of their potential and the immense value
that they represent for a society. Investing in children means also
investing in the future development of a nation, as emphasized in the
slogan chosen for this website: For more information on advocacy in general and the role it plays in influencing outcomes by promoting and supporting interventions and initiatives, click here. We should appreciate children’s needs, protect their rights and meet our obligations towards them. Each child is an invaluable gift to our society, a smile, a promise. We should strive to pass on our heritage to the next generation and help it enhance it further to contribute to enrich humanity. Let’s give children hope, let’s help them not just survive, but thrive happy and healthy; let’s nourish their desire and capacity to learn, boost their enthusiasm, and create a caring and supportive environment.
Both the
World Health Day and
the
World Health Report of 2005 focused on mother and child,
thus emphasizing the strong relationship existing between mother and
child health: This page lists a few examples of activities which have recently been undertaken in countries in the Region to advocate for child health and in which staff of the Regional Office Child and Adolescent Health and Development unit (CAH) have participated. It will be updated periodically to provide more examples. Top
National Public Health Forum on Maternal
and Child Health Despite a reduction in maternal and under-five mortality rates over the past decades, progress has been slow and rates have remained at high levels in Pakistan. To accelerate efforts and scale up interventions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, a maternal and child health strategic framework was prepared and presented at a high-level National Public Health Forum in Islamabad, Pakistan, in April 2005. The Forum aimed at reviewing and endorsing the strategic framework and reaching a consensus among all main partners on maternal and child health interventions for the future. The opening of the Forum by the Prime Minister and the participation in the Forum of Ministers and Secretaries of Health from the Federal level and the provinces, the WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, the director of the WHO Child and Adolescent Health and Development (CAH) Department and regional and country staff, the UNICEF deputy Executive Director, the Director of the global Child Survival Partnership, country representatives and staff of other international and nongovernmental organizations, senior provincial and district officials, and academia, underlined the commitment of both the Government of Pakistan at all levels and partners to maternal and child health. This commitment also led to the recommendation to establish a national Maternal and Child Health Programme.
Visit of the WHO Regional Director for
the Eastern Mediterranean Region to IMCI-implementing areas Dr Hussein Abdel Razek Al Gezairy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region visited IMCI-implementing sites in Alexandria, Egypt, on 7 and 8 February 2005. The visit confirmed how the implementation of the Integrated Management of Child Health (IMCI) strategy could improve the quality of services delivered to children at primary health care level. It showed also how flexible the strategy is to adapt to different health systems comprising different types of primary health care facilities. The role of nurses in delivering services was highlighted and the need to invest in them was one of the main recommendations of the visit. The visit to Alexandria University emphasized the successful experience of introducing IMCI into the paediatric teaching curriculum and its effect on improving the quality of outpatient teaching. The visit was welcomed by the national counterparts and seen as a useful means of advocating for child health, valuing efforts carried out by ministries of health in countries.
Public health days: National Child
Health Policy Every year, the Ministry of Public Health of Tunisia, namely the Department of Primary Health Care, organizes an advocacy event, called “Public health days”. During this event, public health topics of general interest and priorities are addressed and discussed with a large audience, including staff from national, governorate and primary health care levels. In 2004, the national child health policy development was chosen as one of the major topics of the public health day in the country. The WHO regional adviser on Child and Adolescent Health and Development (CAH) participated in this event to present the Child Health Policy Initiative and to co-chair discussions on this subject. The national Primary Health Care team presented the draft child health situation analysis report. HE the Minister of Health of Tunisia inaugurated the event, highlighting the need to have a policy document for children and reiterating the commitment of the Ministry of Public Health in Tunisia to the Child Health Policy Initiative. He emphasized the key role that the IMCI strategy had played to bring quality to primary health care services for children. Participants welcomed the child health policy initiative and recommended that as many partners as possible should be involved in the policy development process. They also discussed the importance of advocacy efforts such as this event throughout the process.
National child health policy conference As part of a series of initiatives to promote child health in the Region and support national efforts towards it, the Regional Office launched the Child Health Policy Initiative (CHPI) in October 2003. Sudan was one of the 5 countries in the Region to join the initiative. Advocacy had been recognized as an essential requirement throughout the policy development process, to raise awareness of all those concerned, involve them actively in the process, and generate support and commitment at all levels. It is very useful to conduct periodic orientation meetings to brief different partners on the progress of the process and have their views. In line with this approach, the Federal Ministry of Health of Sudan organized a conference on the national child health policy initiative in collaboration with WHO in Khartoum in March 2004. The conference was inaugurated by H.E. the Federal Minister of Health, with the participation of the WHO representative and regional staff of the Child and Adolescent Health and Development unit, and was attended by different partners including academia and paediatric society, health authorities from different levels, and UNICEF. During the conference, the initiative was introduced and the draft report of child health situation analysis in Sudan was presented. The importance of a national child health policy document was emphasized by the participants, who also stressed the need to have input and contributions from all concerned partners for the finalization of the report on the child health situation analysis and on future steps to develop the document on the national child health policy.
National
Child Conference A national child conference was held in Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic, in February 2004. The conference was organized by UNICEF in collaboration with four Ministries in Syrian Arab Republic, namely the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Social Affairs. The WHO regional adviser on Child and Adolescent Health and Development (CAH) represented the Organization in the conference. The conference focused on four dimensions: health, cultural, educational and social. Mrs Asmaa Al Assad attended the session on perinatal care on the first day. The importance of childhood for the future of Syrian Arab Republic was reiterated, and health was recognized as a major aspect for building a strong nation. As caring for a child should start very early, even before birth, a full session was dedicated to perinatal care. Equity in access to good quality health services, attention to more deprived areas and addressing newly emerging conditions that affect child health were other major subjects discussed in this national conference.
Below is a list of pamphlets that the Regional Office Child and Adolescent and Health and Development (CAH) unit has developed on specific activities undertaken in the Region.
Nutrition:
Assisting
Governments in Developing National Child Health Policies
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