Investment Cases Principles, Guidance, and Resources "Country-led Investment Cases for Improved Health of Women, Children and Adolescents"

Since 2015, the Global Financing Facility (GFF) for Women, Children and Adolescents has supported countries as they accelerate progress to achieve development goals, with a focus on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition (RMNCAH-N) gains. Led by government and in alignment with other development partners, the GFF partnership aims to mobilize public and private resources from both domestic and external sources; improve the efficiency of their use; and implement innovative health system strategies that improve access to and quality of health services for women, children, and adolescents.

At the national and sectoral levels, significant challenges remain in ensuring strategies and plans are well prioritized and sufficiently funded, evidence based, implemented, and monitored. Additionally, many countries face persistent challenges related to fragmentation of donors and funding, difficulties in coordination as well as with effective and efficient governance hindering health system functioning.

In light of these challenges, a core mandate of the GFF partnership is to identify and address these barriers through several modalities: process facilitation, technical assistance, advisory services and analytics, advocacy, direct operational financing, and knowledge sharing. Within each country, the GFF partnership’s support converges on one strategic plan or instrument that represents the country’s chosen approach for planning, priority setting, resource mobilization, alignment, coordination, and monitoring for improved RMNCAH-N outcomes.

Referred to as the “investment case” (IC), this plan outlines a set of evidence-based, prioritized interventions and reforms that will address health system bottlenecks and, as a result, improve health outcomes of women, children, and adolescents.

The emphasis is on strengthening one country-led plan, one budget, and one monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework to strengthen country planning and implementation processes, thereby reducing fragmentation.