Blog: What are the UK Governments' New Global Health Commitments and Why Do They Matter for Children?
By Jenny Vaughan, Senior Policy Advisor – Child Health
On 14th December 2021 the UK Government launched two new documents which will set and steer the direction of their global health work over the next three years and beyond:
The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) has been advocating for the publication of these documents for a number of years and strongly welcomes their publication. We believe they could be transformational for much needed progress on child survival at national, regional and global levels.
As attention turns to their implementation, here is an overview of the two papers and the opportunity for transformational progress they present.
What they are
The Ending Preventable Deaths Approach Paper provides a strategy for delivery on their 2019 Manifesto commitment to ending the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children and articulates the UK Government’s renewed focus on this agenda, in line with the ambition of Sustainable Development Goal 3.2.
As the Paper sets out, the global health community including the UK Government and UNICEF, know how to save lives and which interventions, tools and approaches are required. That is what makes these deaths preventable, and unacceptable. These interventions can be as simple as providing access to quality maternity care or long-lasting insecticidal nets to prevent malaria infection. It is also about long term investment in and support for the health systems and services that families rely on.
The paper details the UK Government’s track record on global health and commits to enhance support and progress in four key areas:
- Stronger health systems
- Human rights, gender and equality
- Healthier lives and safe environments
- Technology research and innovation.
The Health Systems Strengthening Position Paper articulates the UK Government’s commitment to taking a health systems strengthening approach in its global health portfolio and the results it hope to achieve. It also links the importance of strong health systems to the achievement of the UK Government’s Five Point Plan for Pandemic Preparedness Response and ending preventable deaths.
In detail it:
- Outlines the importance of strong health systems and the interdependence between health systems strengthening, universal health coverage and global health security
- Sets out principles by which the FCDO’s health systems strengthening work will be delivered and
- Outlines how the FCDO will tackle the challenges ahead, working with others.
Why these papers matter
Most importantly, these two publications and their declaration of intent can drive positive change for children’s health globally.
The fact that the newly formed Global Health Directorate in the FCDO, established following the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has launched these documents as its first public communication of its plans and intentions shows that the Government is committed to making good on its 2019 Manifesto promise. With the Health Systems Strengthening Paper, they now have a clear roadmap of how to achieve this.
The release of these papers also show the UK Government is serious about making and even leading progress on ending preventable deaths and upholding the importance of health system strengthening. They show that the UK Government has been listening to its allies and partners who have been engaged in a dialogue on the development of both documents for many years.
They also mean that as the world continues to fight COVID-19 there is clear commitment that these areas will continue to receive much needed attention. This should be celebrated given the complexity and focused needed toto end the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the Ending Preventable Deaths Paper there is an important acknowledgement that this agenda is urgent, and that COVID-19 has worsened global maternal and child mortality. Indeed, data from the Global Financing Facility estimates that for each COVID-19 death, more than two women and children have lost their lives as a result of disruptions to health systems since the start of the pandemic.
The Approach paper also sets out an ambition that meets UNICEF UK’s recommendations to prioritise system-strengthening interventions, focus on fragile and conflict affected states and ensure the continuity and protection maternal, newborn and child health, immunisation and WASH services in the context of the COVID-19 response.
Both documents have strong commitments to the importance and realisation of rights and articulate the UK Government’s commitment to raise its voice and advocate in these areas at a global level
As we enter in to the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic we know that we must find and capitalise on synergies to drive forward progress in global health. Before the pandemic, preventable deaths were already unacceptably high, and as we move forward ambition needs to go beyond returning to a pre-pandemic context but rather driving progress further and faster, using and utilising everything that has been learned in the last three years, including seizing the opportunity to ensure the COVID-19 response directly supports health systems strengthening, as detailed in this UNICEF UK paper, Path to Progress: The COVID-19 Response as a Catalyst for Strengthening Health and Immunisation Systems.
What needs to come next
The UK Government is currently engaged in business planning following the Comprehensive Spending Review to allocate UK Aid across Government Departments and thematic areas.
These papers should form the basis and direction of investment plans so that the ambition outlined in the paper is matched with the investments needed to deliver. This means that funding for the Ending Preventable Deaths agenda, which relies on strong maternal, newborn and child health programming, should be expanded and programmatic allocations to countries, especially fragile and conflict affected states, will also reflect this.
It is also important this commitments and ambition outlined in the paper is reflected in the FCDO’s new International Development Strategy currently being developed.
With a new Minister jointly responsible for Global Health and the international COVID-19 response now in place and the possibility of the UK Aid budget returning to 0.7% of GNI in 2024, there is now a clear path forward for the UK to lead the way on child survival and finally ending preventable deaths around the world.
