Investing in Women’s Health

As part of the World Health Summit, the Global Pespectives Initiative and the Global Financing Facility hosted the side event “Investing in Women’s Health – the Key to Africa’s Recovery” with exciting experts.

The pandemic has impacted all of our lives, and in many cases exacerbated already existing inequalities, especially in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries. Women and children are particularly affected by the consequences of the Corona crisis. Their health is not only threatened by the virus. The lack of options for containing the pandemic and the overburdened health systems have made access to basic medical care for women alarmingly difficult. The Global Financing Facility (GFF) 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. Far from the media attention, a secondary health crisis has emerged that threatens decades of progress in the women’s health sector, sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality.

To protect women from these primary and secondary consequences and to improve their well-being in the long term, the role of climate change must also be taken into account. After all, a lack of conservation has played a crucial role in the spread of the Corona virus and other infectious diseases. A risk that is becoming more and more serious as climate change progresses.

On the sidelines of the World Health Summit, together with our outstanding speakers H.E. Prof. Awa Marie Coll Seck, Minister of State to the President of the Republic of Senegal and physician and science journalist Eckart von Hirschhausen, we discussed:

• the specific implications of the pandemic for women’s universal health coverage,
• the challenges that climate change poses in building strong health systems,
• how access to primary health care for women and children can be ensured even in times of crisis, and
• what contribution Germany can offer.