Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) in collaboration with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) invite students to explore issues related to adolescents’ children’s and women’s health and wellbeing. 10 scholarships of 25.000 NOK are available.
Deadline
September 20, 2023.
Background
WHO is aiming to engage young people as active participants in shaping their lives and directing their futures. The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) is an alliance of 1,400 member organizations, in 192 countries and is the only global health partnership focusing specifically on women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health and well-being.
PMNCH’s Strategy for 2021-2025, focuses on three thematic priorities: 1) Preventable Maternal and Child Mortality, including Newborn deaths and stillbirths; 2) Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights; 3) Adolescent Well-being, and concentrates on selected middle- and low-income countries.
PMNCH’s strategy
- Synthesizing knowledge: Bringing together and synthesizing existing, most up to date data, trends, and evidence to highlight gaps in progress, support consensus building and equip partners with evidence for action and accountability. (PMNCH social media reach of evidence-based messages was in 2022 a little over 18 million people.)
- Campaigns and outreach: With powerful evidence and committed partners, PMNCH interacts with millions of stakeholders through campaigns, events, and media outreach – from youth activists and NGOs, health care professionals and UN Agencies to Ministers and Heads of State. PMNCH is at the forefront of work to amplify people’s voices and call for action to ensure women, children and adolescents are prioritized within broader health and development agenda.
- Engaging partners: Bringing multiple and diverse partners together, strengthening coalitions and building capacity across and within its constituencies. Currently PMNCH is engaging over 1 million young people in the 1.8 Billion Campaign.
Purpose of the SHE/PMNCH collaboration
Engaging students to support and strengthen knowledge and partner capacity in selected countries in order to advance progress of women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. The collaboration activities will include background research, liaison with selected countries, analysis and mapping exercises related to a sub-set of country commitments.
Deliverables
- Visit the websites or official platforms of each global initiative spelt out in available operational documents, including dedicated spreadsheets.
- Look for sections dedicated to commitments, goals, targets, or objectives.
- Explore reports, progress updates, or annual publications that provide details on indicators, metrics, or measurements used to track progress towards the commitments.
- Extract relevant indicators or metrics associated with each commitment. These may be explicitly mentioned or implied in the documents reviewed.
- Note down any additional contextual information, such as target dates, specific actions, or implementation strategies, that may enhance the understanding of each commitment-subtopic mapping.
The deliverables will be completed as follows
Student cohort 1 – autumn 2023-spring 2024 is expected to contribute to the development of PMNCH’s digital commitment compendium by:
- Assisting with desk review and mapping of initiatives and global and/or regional policy processes and platforms.
- Undertaking background research and desk review to identify and catalogue existing government commitments on identified sub-issues/indicators to advance women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health and well-being.
Depending on experiences from cohort 1 SHE/WHO will launch a second student cohort during spring 24.
Please refer to the Terms of Reference (ToR) for a more detailed description of the assignment.
WHO together with SHE will provide the following support
- An introductory briefing on the commitment approach and the work including meetings at The WHO Representation Office, located in Geneva, Switzerland.
- Meetings at regular intervals with students to assess progress and provide guidance.
- A technical focal point assigned to each student.
- Field assessment following an agreed template developed by SHE/UiO.
- Providing the opportunity to attend key global health events or meetings such as the World Health Assembly.
- Potentially, providing the opportunity to conduct country visits in support of multistakeholder platform discussions
How to apply for a scholarship
We expect you to submit a motivation letter stating why and how this PMNCH/SHE invitation appeals to you and relates to your background, competence, and interests concerning your future including ideas for your research project/master thesis.
We also need information about which study program (including semester) you belong to, as well as contact details: name, home address, email, and phone number.
Send application
Please send your application to Ida Lillehagen, ida.lillehagen@medisin.uio.no, by September 20, 2023.
The best qualified applicants will be invited to an interview.