Blog: 66th World Health Assembly begins in Geneva, Switzerland

By Thiago Luchesi, Advisor for Child Health Policy and Rights, World Vision International in Geneva 

It is not every day that ministers of health from across the world and global health actors meet to discuss the health challenges facing the earth’s population. But every year they do, and today in Geneva, Switzerland the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision making body of the World Health Organisation, will be meeting for the 66th year in a row.

For World Vision, the WHA presents important opportunities to influence decision makers on all issues concerning the health of children, mothers, families and communities. This includes addressing the key parts of our Child Health Now campaign.

The focus this year for the campaign is on the role of families and communities to improve the health of children. Based on our knowledge and experience, we believe that a critical but often overlooked strategy to reach the poorest and most marginalised children and improve child health is through engaging and empowering families and communities in taking control of their own health

This strategy will be presented and launched in a much awaited report from World Vision called “Within Reach: Ending preventable child deaths.” You can download the report here. The report puts families and communities at the centre of the response to the major preventable childhood diseases that take the lives of children under five.

The launch will take place in a WHA side event, in partnership with the US, Norway, Nigeria, WHO and PATH[1]. Combined with the report launch participants will discuss how we can advance women’s and children’s health with a focus on linkages with the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children – a plan to save the lives of six million children in five years. Find out more about the commission here. 

The Commission’s work focuses on the availability of essential medicines and supplies for women and children, such as antibiotics to treat pneumonia, oral rehydration salts to treat diarrhoea etc. It’s also concerned with the barriers and inequities that prevent women and children from having access to and utilizing these medicines and supplies.

Later in the week World Vision International President Kevin Jenkins will be signing a partnership agreement with Royal DSM, a global life sciences company active in health and nutrition. The agreement is a new type of partnership to scale up child nutrition and will be initially implemented in Tanzania.

The signing will take place during a special event with DSM and the governments of Tanzania and the Netherlands. The event will discuss the differentiated roles of government, private sector, and civil society, and specifically the DSM-WV partnership, to realise improved nutrition in countries.

Robert Kanwagi, Health & HIV/AIDS Associate Director for World Vision Uganda, will also be coming to Geneva to lobby delegates from Uganda and other African countries and to represent World Vision in high-level global health meetings.

A wider delegation from World Vision will be working hard to anticipate and seize all the opportunities that will arise next week. Do watch for updates.

• Find out more about the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children. 
• Take our campaign action to support our calls at the World Health Assembly. 

[1] PATH are a nonprofit organisation that seek to tackle global health issues through innovation