Ministers of Health

Globally, health indicators show that women are being disproportionately affected by preventable disease.  Since 1985, the percentage of women living with HIV/AIDS has risen from 35% to 48% worldwide, and that figure is continuing to rise at an alarming rate.  For example, young women now make up 60% of all 15-24 year olds living with AIDS[1]. Although this trend is most pronounced in developing countries, and Africa in particular, new evidence also shows that prevention efforts in Western Europe are faltering as they are outpaced by the changing patterns of infection.  The factors which increase women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS are partly biological as they are more vulnerable to infection, but the key factors that explain women’s increasing rates of HIV/AIDS are largely social: both behavioral and cultural, and often underpinned by economic insecurity and legal discrimination. A functioning and fair health system would alleviate the burden of disease currently falling on women and girls.  As the head of the public health systems in their countries, Ministers of Health must be at the core of any effort to raise the status of global women’s health. 

In 2004,  the Network of Women Ministers of Health was established to develop strategies for ministers to work together to shape health, development and human rights policies at the national, regional and international level. It has convened annually in conjunction with the World Health Assembly in Geneva to discuss issues of common concern with the aim of influencing the agendas of international dialogue around women’s health.  The Network, currently co-Chaired by the Honorable Elena Salgado, Minister of Health, Spain, and the Honorable Charity Ngilu, Minister of Health, Kenya, holds the potential of building a critical mass to catalyze for change -- shaping and informing health policy-making from the national to the global level. 

Focusing on the key issue areas of reproductive and sexual health, the Network is presently undertaking a proposed five year program entitled the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Women’s Health.  The primary aims of this program are to build the capacity, political leadership, and expertise of ministries, to coordinate donor aid and establish equitable health budgeting for greater efficiency and impact, and to strengthen relationships between government and civil society organizations to connect grassroots work to policymaking.  The Initiative was officially launched September 18^th, 2006 in Maputo, Mozambique on the occasion of the Special Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health.