If the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be achieved the needs of women, children and adolescents must be at the heart of the development agenda, said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as he launched a bold initiative at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly.

The updated Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health is intended to ensure that the SDG commitment to accelerate progress in reducing newborn, child and maternal mortality becomes a reality for women, children and young people around the globe.

Launched on 26 September during the UN Sustainable Development Summit, the initiative builds on the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, spearheaded by the Secretary-General in 2010, that blossomed into the Every Woman Every Child global movement. This movement has seen the galvanizing of political commitment, multi-stakeholder partnerships and action that has led to significant progress in reducing maternal and infant mortality. However, Ban Ki-moon told the gathering that efforts now need to step up a gear.

To ensure that the necessary resources are available, a major section of the high-level two-hour event involved the announcement of key strategic commitments from world leaders, multilateral organizations, CEOs from the private sector and other partners.

Young people also played a vital role, taking the floor to tell the gathering what they want and need over the next 15 years and what they commit to do to improve the health of their generation. Young people representing The PACT, a coalition of youth organisations supported by UNAIDS, as well as Restless Development and Y-PEER shared commitments to the updated Global Strategy to end all preventable maternal, child and adolescent deaths by 2030 and the end of the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

Introduced by UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, Ishita Chaudhry spoke about the importance of governments committing to adolescents and to support young people to be agents of change to help ensure that mothers, children and adolescents everywhere survive and lead healthy lives.