Political leadership for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health

Editorials 313 The sustainable development goals (SDGs) cannot be achieved without committed political leadership. Progress on women's, children's and adolescents' health, requires such commitments to be upheld and translated into concrete action across sectors. 1 Since 2000, the eight goals of the millennium development goals (MDGs) inspired our governments to improve health and socioeconomic development. Despite unfinished business , this is a strong foundation for the transition to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). 2 The Global strategy for women's, children's and adolescents' health (2016– 2030) is a platform to support country-led actions to operationalize the SDGs. 3 Indonesia and Ethiopia are two countries that made active contributions to the formulation of this global strategy. As ministers of health, we are placing women, children and adolescents at the core of our governments' national health policy. Our governments have incorporated local and community-level efforts by a range of stakeholders. Citizen leadership has provided us with insight when formulating our national health policies. In 2015, we held national citizens' hearings with young people to get input into our national plans and the global strategy. In the transition to implementation, we welcome discussions on the SDGs and the global strategy at this month's World Health Assembly. We seek to learn from other countries' successes and challenges and would like to share some of our own. In Indonesia, between 2000 and 2015 the percentage of Indonesians living in poverty decreased from 19% to 11% and the lives of millions of women, children and adolescents have been improved by increased health budgets and health service coverage. 4 However, keeping in mind the multiple dimensions of health and poverty, challenges remain. More than half of Indonesian women have access to maternal health care and more than two-thirds of babies are born in health facilities. Despite these improvements, fifty percent of all under-five deaths in Indonesia occur in the first month of life and we recognize that newborn health requires greater investment and attention. There are also those who experience difficulty in accessing health services due to challenges beyond health, such as remote geographical locations and lack of transportation and other facilities. 5 The Indonesian government is also striving towards better laws for reproductive health to strengthen this component of the health system, improve the quality of care and extend coverage, especially to those living in hard-to-reach places. With the aim of achieving universal health coverage by 2019, …