Call to Action on COVID-19

COVID-19 presented a massive shock to already struggling health systems globally and the world economy. Countries are grappling with how best to address mortality and morbidity due to the virus. At the same time, the pandemic disrupted the provision of life-saving maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (MNCAH) services, contributing to the erosion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and adolescents, and further exposing and exacerbating systematic and structural racial, ethnic and gender inequities everywhere.

PMNCH continues to address the aftermath of the pandemic in our advocacy work, including the ongoing effects of the crisis on the health of women, children, and adolescents in the context of multiple, overlapping crises, including rises in the cost of living, climate change, and the expanding number of conflicts in the world today.

Commitments in support of PMNCH’s Call to Action on COVID-19 are financial, policy and/or service delivery pledges by partner governments, including donor governments, to advance the health of women, children and adolescents in the context of the response to COVID-19. To align with the goals of the PMNCH COVID-19 Call to Action campaign, commitments adhere to written guidelines.

Throughout the Covid-19 response and recovery, we urge governments to protect and promote the health and rights of women, children and adolescents through strengthened political commitment, policies and domestic resource mobilization and financing, supported by Official Development Assistance, for:

	1. Sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) services, supplies, and information and demand generation including for contraception, safe abortion, immunization, safe delivery, stillbirth prevention, and mental health;
	2. Advancing sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality;
	3. Quality care, including respectful and dignified care, and effective community engagement and redress mechanisms;
	4. Recruitment, training, equal and fair pay, and safe working conditions, including protective personal equipment, for frontline health workers, notably midwives and nurses;
	5. Social protections, including food and nutrition security, for marginalized and vulnerable groups and enhanced data to better understand and address disparities experienced by adolescents, refugees, the internally displaced, migrants, indigenous communities, persons living with disabilities, among others;
	6. Functional, safe, and clean toilet and hand washing facilities and quality potable drinking water, with a particular focus on healthcare centers, schools, and centers for refugees and internally displaced persons; and
	7. Prevention of violence against women, children and adolescents through education and protection programs.