MSD for Mothers

Maternal Health and Refugee Women’s Health in Europe​

Maternal health in Europe is an area of numerous policy issues both at the national and supranational levels; however, these levels often lack the opportunity to communicate in a truly workable interactive way. ​

About Merck for Mothers: Merck for Mothers, known as MSD for Mothers outside of the United States and Canada, was a 10-year $500 million initiative focused on improving the health and well-being of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth. Since its consolidation, MSD for Mother has been partnering with different stakeholders from the NGO and policy making environment at EU as well as national levels. ​
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Challenge: Since 2014, MSD for Mothers expanded its focus to the European region (universal access to healthcare for all women). As such, the organisation needed support in terms of boosting its advocacy engagement at EU level and positioning itself in order to solidify support from policy stakeholders on equitable access. With this in mind, led by Jacqueline Bowman, Third-i became an integral partner to its European strategy, providing support and strategic counsel on public affairs and policy-driven participatory workshop facilitation. ​

Malta: Maternal Health and Refugee Women session for Parliamentarians

A two-day field trip was planned to take place in Malta (March 2017), under the patronage of H.E. Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta, organised by the Women Political Leaders (WPL) Parliamentarian Forum in partnership with MSD for Mothers. It brought together decision-makers from the national parliamentarian level and from the EU institutions (e.g., EU Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis.)​

Challenge: break down the barriers between different policy stakeholders, ensuring that they produce actionable outcomes and concrete results. ​

Solution: Working in close collaboration with WPL and MSD for Mothers, Third-i was asked to mastermind a results-oriented participatory working session in Malta, and then a stakeholders follow-up at the European Parliament later in the year.

We developed a format bringing a range of stakeholder profiles from different countries together in an innovative, participatory way. The highly interactive discussion allowed participants to engage with each other on their perceptions of maternal health and how to bring policy solutions. It also helped overcome the language barrier between participants, with a number of cross-party national MPs participating actively through the help of a translator. The group developed solutions together and assigned priority to each recommendation.​

European Parliament: Maternal Health and Refugee Women session ​

Challenge: ensuring that different policy makers and other stakeholders can take co-ownership of the Malta Outcome Declaration and co-create actionable next steps. ​

​Solution: Third-i was asked to provide an interactive working session with the meeting attendees, coming from various stakeholder groups, focusing on proposing concrete solutions on some of the key points from the Outcome Declaration. ​

The session was inspired by the commitment during the March meeting in Malta, where calls were made for less work in silos and taking into account existing initiatives in order to streamline everyone’s work towards resolving the problems vulnerable women face in maternal health.​

This session brought together EU-level, national and regional policy makers to discuss the issue of vulnerable women’s health from a Europe-facing perspective. The meeting also served as a bridge between the national and European levels, following the commitment from Malta, and was organised by Women Political Leaders in partnership with MSD for Mothers.​

Impact

Based on the input from the stakeholder groups, an Outcomes Declaration (Taking Effective Policy Action to Ensure Maternal Health for Migrant and Refugee Women) was produced with Third-i’s active contribution. These outcomes were the direct result of the Third-i interactive format and voted proposals by the national and EU level participants.​

The Outcomes Declaration focused on providing recommendations to improve the situation of maternal health in Europe, with a focus on migrant and refugee women.​

The Declaration received the endorsement of the President of Malta, as well as national Ministers and EU leaders. ​

As a follow-up meeting, the European Parliament session focused on building further on the Malta outcomes, allowing to build on the next steps towards improving maternal health in Europe: ​

• The Malta and European Parliament events served as a catalyst towards a request from the Maltese President on a research project on maternal health mapping across Europe​
• The potential for a European Parliament Pilot Project focused on vulnerable women ​
• Contribution to an MSD for Mothers and Medecins du Monde Policy Recommendations for Greece ​

Interest on uptake of the topic in the form of a research project from the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) Secretariat at the European Parliament ​