Yokohama: President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on world leaders to ramp up investments in the health and rights of women, children, and adolescents, emphasizing that failure to act would result in lives lost, futures diminished, and communities destabilized. The President delivered his address on Thursday at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Global Leaders Network dialogue on Investing in Peace: ‘Health for Adolescent Youth and Women.’
According to South African Government News Agency, the session took place alongside the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) Summit in Yokohama, Japan. President Ramaphosa, in his role as Chair of the Global Leaders Network for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health, highlighted the Network’s focus on the health, dignity, and potential of these groups as essential to a just, prosperous, and peaceful world.
President Ramaphosa pointed out the stark reality that many women still die in childbirth from preventable causes, and numerous children and adolescents suffer and die from illnesses that could be prevented or treated. He emphasized that each preventable death signifies a policy and administrative failure, while each life saved demonstrates political will.
The President outlined three critical priority areas for the Global Leaders Network:
1. Placing women, children, and adolescents at the center of universal health coverage, ensuring health services are safe, effective, compassionate, and responsive to their needs.
2. Increasing investment in the health of women, children, and adolescents. As official development assistance declines, countries are encouraged to pursue domestic resource mobilization for sustainable health financing, while also fostering multilateral financing solutions and considering gap financing mechanisms.
3. Upholding sexual and reproductive health rights, as lack of access to safe abortion leads to higher death rates, costly complications, and permanent damage resulting in infertility.
President Ramaphosa called for stronger partnerships among governments, financial institutions, civil society, and the private sector to protect health funding as a pillar of development cooperation, integrate health into climate and broader development strategies, invest in innovation and digital health, and ensure accountability.
He affirmed that the Global Leaders Network is committed to amplifying the voices of the most vulnerable at the highest political levels. The President stated the moral imperative that no woman, child, or adolescent should die from preventable causes, and stressed the importance of standing against reversals in sexual and reproductive health and rights.
President Ramaphosa concluded by asserting that women, children, and adolescents must remain central to sustainable development, as they embody the future that the global community is striving to secure.