Parliaments lead the change for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health: what have we learnt?

Introduction The Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (WCAH) (2016–2030) recognises that parliaments and parliamentarians play an important role in improving WCAH.1 Parliamentarians enact legislation and approve budgets, including allocation of resources to priority areas. Citizen’s voices and MPs’ responsibility to their constituents The Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Civil Society Advocacy Coalition led by World Vision Uganda and the African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation, and supported in part by Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health organised live testimonies during advocacy engagements, allowing women to describe the impact of the health worker shortage on their own and their children’s health. In addition to the responsibility felt by parliamentarians towards their constituents, they were also incentivised by the opportunity to demonstrate the impact they could achieve in improving human resources for health. [...]a global study on female political representation notes a positive correlation between increased numbers of women parliamentarians and reduced child mortality.16 A study in Pakistan noted that, although women accounted for only one quarter of MPs, they raised five times more parliamentary questions on health than their male counterparts.17 Additionally, community-based health assessments in Kenya and Namibia showed that female parliamentarians had greater knowledge and understanding of women’s health issues than male parliamentarians, possibly explaining their different levels of engagement with the issue.18 Parliaments represent the interests of all citizens19 and are therefore responsible for achieving gender balance, which has been shown to improve health outcomes.