IMNHC Side Event: Maternal and Newborn Health at a Turning Point

While neonatal mortality has halved since 1990 and maternal mortality has long been treated as a litmus test for health system strength, progress has stalled. Across regions, we are witnessing a coordinated rollback of hard-won gains — driven by rising authoritarianism, digital disinformation, shrinking civic space, pronatalist rhetoric, and a global aid architecture that is no longer fit for purpose.

Investment in maternal and newborn health has always been shaped by power — by whose lives are valued, whose knowledge counts, and who decides what is prioritised and funded. Today, that power is being contested in urgent and consequential ways.

This collaborative event brings together feminist leaders, advocates, funders, movement actors, and policymakers for two critical, deeply intertwined conversations:

As coordinated anti-rights movements reshape maternal and newborn health policy, funding, and public narratives, this panel will examine what’s at stake—and what it will take to respond. Bringing together feminist leaders from Africa, Latin America, and around the world, the conversation will spotlight locally rooted strategies and cross-sector alliances advancing maternal and reproductive health, bodily autonomy, and justice in an increasingly polarized world.

Examining feminist funding models as a viable alternative to centrally designed, short-term funding systems — and spotlighting participatory, movement-led approaches that shift power and resource flows in maternal and newborn health.

Anchored in lessons from the Birth Justice Initiative — a six-year partnership between Global Fund for Women (GFW), Comotion, and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) — the discussion will reflect on how feminist funds and institutional donors can work together to rebuild funding systems shaped by grassroots leadership and lived realities.

Together, we will ask:

• What does it mean to defend maternal health in an era of anti-gender and anti-democracy backlash?
• How must funding systems change to align with movement expertise and community priorities?
• What does “doing more with less” look like when we radically rethink how money flows?

Leveraging the convening power of IMNHC, we aim to firmly align maternal and newborn health with gender justice, bodily autonomy, and human rights — and to catalyse cross-sector collaboration at a pivotal moment for the field.

This event is organis`ed by people and organisations who are deeply invested in reproductive justice, including Comotion, Centre for Reproductive Rights, Libera, Kinaura Partners, and Global Fund for Women, with support from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

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Host or Publisher Comotion