IYAFP had the pleasure of joining and participating in the 35th Board Meeting of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), held during a landmark year that celebrates two decades of the Partnership’s unwavering commitment to advancing the health and rights of women, children, and adolescents globally.
As a youth-led member of the PMNCH Board, IYAFP stands at the intersection of advocacy, policy influence, and youth mobilisation, bringing the voices and realities of young people into some of the world’s most powerful health governance spaces. Our participation in this meeting was strategic, timely, and impactful.
A Strategy for the Future: 2026–2030
At the 35th Board Meeting, chaired by the Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, we collectively adopted PMNCH’s new Strategy for 2026–2030, a forward-looking vision that builds on past achievements while confronting today’s challenges with urgency and innovation.
This strategy reaffirms PMNCH’s role as a convener and connector, mobilising political will, financial resources, and multi-sectoral partnerships to support health, rights, and well-being across the life course. It places equity, accountability, and youth leadership at the centre of its ambition.
As a youth-led organization, IYAFP continues to advocate for a strong emphasis on adolescent-responsive health systems, access to SRHR, digital innovation, and meaningful youth engagement that goes beyond tokenism. We’re thrilled to see many of these priorities reflected in the final strategy.
What This Means for Young People
The new strategy offers both a challenge and a charge: how do we ensure young people are not only consulted but co-own the implementation of this vision?
For IYAFP, the answer lies in radical inclusion. Youth-led organisations must have access to funding, decision-making power, and platforms to shape policy from the grassroots to the global level, and our participation on the PMNCH Board is a critical step in that direction.
Being part of the PMNCH Board is more than a title. It is a responsibility. A responsibility to speak up, to question the status quo, to push for policies rooted in rights and evidence, and to remind global leaders that no strategy can succeed without the full inclusion of the world’s 1.8 billion young people.
We are incredibly grateful to the PMNCH Chair, Helen Clark, and all Board members for their stewardship, solidarity, and trust in youth leadership. As we move toward the next chapter of PMNCH’s journey, IYAFP is more committed than ever to ensuring that the rights, health, and dreams of young people are protected, respected, and fulfilled.