On March 17th 2023, the IBP Network in partnership with IPPF, hosted the first Civil Society Dialogue on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) with Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO).
The hyrbid event brought together over 600 participants representing civil society organizations (CSOs) from 105 countries around the world to share SRHR priorities at global, regional, and country levels and propose concrete actions for WHO engagement with CSOs working in SRHR. Dr Kalpana Apte, Director General of Family Planning India, moderated the discussion.
Dr Tedros opened the session by outlining how WHO and CSOs can collaborate to advance SRHR priorities around the world.
"CSOs have a critical role to play in facilitating the use of guidelines among stakeholders in countries. Second, setting the research agenda. CSOs can help inform WHO about local needs to inform global research agendas and the development of new guidelines. Third, misinformation. CSOs can help combat misinformation by working with WHO to ensure that evidence is packaged and disseminated in a way that is well understood and useful for communities. Finally, accountability. We look to CSOs to help hold WHO's global, regional, and country offices accountable to deliver on SRH for everyone everywhere," Dr Tedros said.
Following Dr Tedros's remarks, five speakers representing CSO constituencies shared their experiences and offered actions to strengthen the work of WHO with CSOs to advance SRHR.
Key themes included the need to better engage CSOs, not only in the development of WHO Guidelines but also in the dissemination and use of guidelines. As Saidy Brown, a youth HIV activist from South Africa said, "There's no point developing a guideline that collects dust in Switzerland".
Sophie Dilmitis, co-Chair of the WHO Advisory Group for Women Living with HIV, Zimbabwe, applauded WHO for its work on community engagement for the Guideline for Women Living with HIV. Dilmitis also urged WHO to have more processes to ensure the full implementation of guidelines such as innovative funding mechanisms or small grants for advocacy and accountability mechanisms.
In addition, there was a call to address the opposition movements to SRHR countering suppression and repression with science and modern approaches that reach people where they are and how the access information. As Saidy elaborated, "Not everyone reads, and the WHO needs to shift with the times; The WHO must adopt more technology-based ways that engage young people to access information."
Susana Chavez, Executive Director PromSex Peru, described how WHOs convening and scientific authority was instrumental in Peru where years of activism coupled with the WHO Safe Abortion Guidelines helped position safer SRHR services, including access to safe abortion services.
"We can't wait for change to come from governments alone. We believe WHO can open up and create spaces for dialogue with Ministers and decision makers," Chavez said.
Wendy Kabore, Executive Director of Pananetugri Initiative from Burkina Faso, raised the importance of WHOs commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and primary health care (PHC) and ensuring that SRHR is a key component particularly at community levels. As noted, SRHR is still a sensitive topic in many communities so ensuring it is seen as part of PHC and UHC as well as engaging multiple stakeholders like religious leaders, women's groups, and feminist movements is critical.
"We need multisectoral approaches that involve community groups like feminist groups, religious leaders and others to challenge norms around SRHR," Kabore said.
Finally, Innocent Grant, a youth leader, activist and Program Director from the Young and Alive Initiative based in Tanzania, highlighted the important role young people have in moving the SRHR agenda forward. He also acknowledged the need for multisectoral approaches and addressing the range of issues important to young people such as the climate crisis, workforce development, and education, in addition to SRHR.
"It is important to understand the diversity among young people. There are some who fall into multiple intersections of vulnerability," Grant said. Given the various CSO engagement efforts at WHO, Grant recommended a dedicated SRHR Task Team as part of the CSO Commission and WHO Youth Council.
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In her reflections, Director of WHOs SRHR Department, Dr Pascale Allotey noted, "This is the first of these dialogues that is happening. We are incredibly open to hearing back from you to ensure that the work we do continues to be relevant."
Finally, Dr Tedros reiterated the important role of civil society and community engagement in the development of WHO guidelines and research. Heacknowledged that more is needed to help CSOs work more closely with regional and country offices and make the linkages with Ministers of Health and senior officials at the country level. Dr Tedros further affirmed WHOs commitment to SRHR and to science and evidence. While recognizing that there are political sensitives around some SRHR topics with certain member states, WHO will continue to push forward with science and evidence.
WHO leadership emphasized the role of CSOs is critical and one that WHO continues to prioritize.
"[CSOs] should be involved, no question. Not because you are asking, but because it makes the guidelines complete," Dr Tedros concluded.
