Gender Equality and Health Alliance

FRIEDA – The Feminist Peace Organisation

 IAMANEH 

Médecins du Monde

Women’s Hope International

The four organisations are rooted in Swiss civil society and possess extensive strategic and operational expertise in the following areas: gender equality and women’s rights, related challenges in the health sector – particularly regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights – and the fight against harmful practices and gender-based sexual violence.
The Alliance’s international programme covers 19 partner countries in Eastern Europe, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. Whilst these countries show varying levels of progress in human development, they all share persistent gender inequalities across all areas of social and economic life, with women and children facing heightened vulnerability.

Alliance Objectives

Based on the objectives and experiences of its members, the Alliance has set the following overarching goal: “Greater access for more women and children to sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as the realisation of their rights free from violence and any other form of discrimination, whilst making self-determined and informed decisions about their lives”.
The Alliance’s programme is designed on the basis of each partner’s specific programmes, as well as shared actions and approaches. This enables it to pool its resources, strengthen capacity building and shared learning within the Alliance and with its partners, and ultimately create synergies between approaches that will contribute to the impact of its interventions.

Mission and vision

Discrimination against women worldwide is one of the most widespread human rights violations, with disastrous effects on their physical and psychological well-being and on the victims’ chances of becoming self-determined agents of their own lives. Similarly, women and children are the main victims of failing health systems and unequal access to care, and are the most vulnerable to violence.

The Alliance shares a vision of an equal world, free from gender-based discrimination and violence. A world in which everyone, including the most vulnerable, enjoys their sexual and reproductive rights and has access to quality sexual and reproductive health services. Through partnerships with local stakeholders (Sustainable Development Goals – SDG 17), the Alliance aims to promote gender equality (SDG 5) and improve sexual and reproductive health and rights (SDG 3), thereby contributing to poverty reduction (SDG 1).
Within the Alliance, members develop common approaches, join forces to strengthen their technical capacities and create synergies aimed at multiplying the impact of their programmes, with a view to becoming a unique centre of excellence in the Swiss development cooperation sector.