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Summary box
At the onset of the Sustainable Development Goals, in 2015, a group of global health experts delivered a call to action for an improved measurement system for women’s and children’s health.
Five principles were defined, including having a focused set of core indicators, making data relevant to countries, investing in innovations, embedding equity measures and supportive global leadership.
Five years later, in 2020, a second meeting reviewed progress against these principles and identified gaps and opportunities for investment in the coming decade.
The greatest opportunity now is to make an intentional shift from global to local actions that strengthen measurement systems in the locations where they are needed.
Greater country ownership of the measurement and accountability agenda is needed to promote more context-specific actions that reflect multisectoral realities, and that are supported by a responsive and adaptable measurement community.
Introduction
As the current global COVID-19 pandemic makes clear, data are power. Now more than ever it is important to reflect on who holds that power and how well it is used to improve global health. This was also on the minds of a group of global health experts at the onset of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2015, after a first meeting in Kirkland, USA, these experts delivered a call to action for a robust maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) measurement system that could effectively measure and monitor the coverage of high-impact healthcare while also improving capacity to track universal health coverage for women and children.1 That call to action defined five principles. There should be (1) a core focus on a set of indicators; (2) data relevant to countries; (3) measurement innovations; (4) embedded equity analysis and (5) global leadership.
Five years later, in 2020, MNCH measurement experts reconvened in Nairobi, Kenya, to reflect on progress against …