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Global Strategy on Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030)

OHCHR and the right to health

Launched by the Secretary General in September 2015, the Global Strategy is a platform for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals focused on the health of women, children and adolescents. Its predecessor, the 2010-2015 Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, aimed to support the achievement of MDGs 4, 5 and 6, to:

  • reduce child mortality,
  • improve maternal health, and
  • combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases by 2015.

The renewed Global Strategy builds on new evidence, including the need to focus on critical population groups such as newborns and adolescents, to build the resilience of health systems and to improve the quality of health services.

Related documents and links

Report of the High Level Working Group

The High Level Working Group for the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents for the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents was established in 2016 by joint initiative of the WHO Director General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Its objectives include securing political support, at both national and international levels, for the implementation of the human rights-related actions of the Global Strategy on Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health.

The High Level Working Group presented its report, Leading the Realization of Human Rights to Health and through Health (2017), to the World Health Assembly on 22 May 2017 and to the Human Rights Council at its 35th session.

Key recommendations of the report include:

  • Upholding the right to health in national law;
  • Establishing a rights-based approach to health financing and universal health coverage;
  • Addressing human rights as determinants of health,
  • Removing social, gender and cultural norms that prevent the realization of rights; and
  • Ensuring accountability to the people for the people.

For more information, see Human Rights Based Approaches to Women and Children's Health