For the last few weeks GSMA has been part of a global writing team, reviewing and revising the Every Woman Every Child Global Strategy 2.0. For the first time in history, we have the knowledge and the opportunity for women, children and adolescents to improve their chances of survival and health, realize their potential and therefore shape their futures. After 15 years of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), lives have been saved on an unprecedented scale, leaving the global community with better information and better tools than ever before – we know what works and what still needs to be done. Now, under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have the opportunity and the responsibility to further transform the way we work from 2016 to 2030, so that we create the conditions for a healthy, prosperous, sustainable future for every person, everywhere.

The SDGs’ transformative agenda will not be achieved unless women, children and adolescents are at its centre, helping drive the comprehensive change that the SDGs envisage.The 2015 Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health seeks to achieve nothing less than a transformation. It is the front-runner platform for the implementation of the sustainable development agenda and provides the foundation for a people-based movement towards that transformed future.

As with all strategy revisions, moving forward requires that we also look back. Between 2010 and today, more than 400 organizations, including more than 100 private sector organizations, have made commitments to advance the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. Private sector contributions have come from companies operating in Africa, Asia, Europe and the US, including many Fortune 500 companies. There are also more than 1,000 innovations in the pipeline for scaled RMNCAH delivery and it has been mentioned repeatedly that the greatest gains in health goals have been realised through direct private sector investment.

Two weeks ago we were in Johannesburg, South Africa at the South Africa Consultation on the Global Strategy 2.0 where we chaired a consultation with more than 25 leading companies and business coalitions. There is wide consensus that to move this transformative agenda forward we need to do a number of things:

1. You’ll be happy to read that innovation and integration with adjacent sectors features throughout the draft. A little (lot) of strong-arming on our part has ensured that mobile and nutrition have a front and centre positioning in those integrated components
2. We all need to start talking the same language. While the draft strategy outlines an ambitious set of goals that all constituencies agree to, it seems like we’re trying to build the Tower of Babyel – all speaking different languages and running in different directions. Let’s tell a visionary story of hope that everyone from CEOs and presidents, to policy makers, nurses, teachers and accountants can associate with. We need everyone to not only believe in what we are doing but to also individually deliver on what needs to be done to save every life
3. We need to see a clearer business case that stimulates private sector investment. At the moment it’s just not there
4. Besides the strong focus on commodities and innovative financing which we think is a really good thing, behaviour change communication, workplace maternity protection and the concept of data quality over data quantity are areas that everyone is crying out for
5. Then there is the concept of neutral brokerage or facilitation that needs to happen between private and development sectors. We need more help to change the image of big business and distill political ideations to concrete, actionable work that we can take to our shareholders to convince that there’s a strong return on investment.

These are just a handful of the areas we are passionate about and believe need to be included in the revised Global Strategy. The next few months, leading up to the launch of the SDGs in New York at the United Nations General Assembly, will be critical to cement the postion of the private sector, and in particular the role of mobile and nutrition in the implementation plan.

Please let us know your thoughts and how we can feed that back into the global discussions.

For more information on GSMA Mobile for Development mHealth, please see here or contact us on [email protected].