Huffington Post: A Plan to End All Preventable Deaths by 2030
Flavia Bustreo, WHO assistant director-general for family, women’s and children’s health, and vice chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

“…Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) addresses the health MDG’s shortcomings. It is a central goal relevant to all countries and all people: ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.’ Underpinning this broad goal are 13 targets, including ambitious new ones for improving the health and lives of women, babies, children worldwide. … A key driver to guide the work to achieve these targets will be the renewed Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. … The strategy identifies what actions and investments will have the greatest impact on saving lives and improving health. … With the SDGs, we must aim for progress across the board — in remote and rural areas and among the poorest and most disadvantaged residents of urban centers. We need to be able to identify the gaps so that we can allocate limited resources effectively…” (9/3).

Huffington Post: Progress on Health, but Not Fast Enough
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“…SDG 3 is an ambitious goal, and it should be. Improving health outcomes is the cornerstone of progress — especially when it comes to improving the health and wellbeing of women and children. When you invest in the health of a woman and her child, they are able to take advantage of educational and economic opportunities, reaping long-lasting benefits for their family, community, and nation. Over the past 15 years, we have learned what it takes to save and improve the lives of women and children around the world. But knowing what it takes isn’t the same as doing it. Now it’s time to speed that progress along. … By focusing on SDG 3 and investing in proven solutions, we can turn our shared impatience into action” (9/3).

Huffington Post: The 2030 Agenda Is a Win for Women and Girls
Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Federation of America

“…[The third Sustainable Development Goal] — ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages — contains strong language around sexual and reproductive health care that could have great implications for health access here in the U.S. and around the globe. … This passage marks a critical step forward in advancing health access and gender equity. The global community was long overdue in recognizing that protecting and promoting sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights is crucial to ending global poverty. … I’m so pleased to see governments acknowledging this reality with their support for Goal 3 in the 2030 Agenda and look forward to the adoption of this unprecedented agenda. I strongly urge governments, including the U.S., to follow through on their commitments to make this ambitious agenda a reality” (9/3).

Huffington Post: The World’s New Health Goal Will Need Game-Changing Health Technologies
Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University professor and president emeritus at Harvard University, and Gavin Yamey, professor of global health and public policy at Duke University and member of the Lancet Commission

“…Investing in global health R&D won’t just save millions of lives. It will also reap astonishing economic returns. … In [the report of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH) that we coauthored with 23 other economists and health experts], we called on donors to step up their R&D investments. … We believe a new ‘health investors’ platform’ could provide … strategic knowledge about the greatest health challenges facing poor populations, the most promising candidates in the R&D pipeline, and the likely health and economic impacts of developing these into health tools that will reach the poor. … The ambitious targets contained in SDG3 can only be achieved if we find creative ways to bring new health tools to those with the greatest health needs” (9/3).