NGEC Chairperson Commissioner Winfred Lichuma has been appointed member of the Independent Accountability Panel (IAP) for Every Woman Every Child Health Initiative. She becomes the first woman in Kenya and one of two members from Africa to sit in the influential panel.
Launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit in September 2010, Every Woman Every Child is an unprecedented global movement that mobilizes and intensifies international and national action by governments, multilaterals, the private sector and civil society to address the major health challenges facing women, children and adolescents around the world. The movement puts into action the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents' Health, which presents a roadmap to ending all preventable deaths of women, children and adolescents within a generation and ensuring their well-being. The IAP is comprised of nine distinguished panelists from diverse regions and backgrounds that range from human rights experts to humanitarian leaders to statisticians. These panelists are empowered to command attention from the global community across the full range of the updated Global Strategy’s accountability framework – to monitor, review and act – and across the spectrum of issues that comprise the Global Strategy’s “Survive, Thrive, and Transform” themes. The Panel is expected to produce its first preliminary report before the end of 2016. This report will provide an independent assessment of progress and challenges to help strengthen the response from the international health community and countries. Lichuma said she was honoured and privileged to serve in the IAP and pledged to deliver her best.