Audience members opted for seats on the floor and leaned against walls in a packed room at the Center for Global Development (CGD) yesterday at the launch event for Start With a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health.

Supported by the Nike Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the report is a follow-up to the 2008 publication, Girls Count: An Action and Investment Agenda, and is part of a series of publications focusing on issues affecting adolescent girls, including education, health, and economic empowerment in the developing world.

The report, spearheaded by Miriam Temin and Ruth Levine, stresses the importance of including adolescent girls in global health programs and policies. The report sheds light on the realities of girls’ health and well-being in developing countries, emphasizing the link between the health of girls and their families, as well specific actions that will improve health prospects for millions of women and girls worldwide.

“When adolescent girls win, everyone wins. Girls are…agents of positive change for their future families and communities,” remarked Levine.

CGD Board Member and Executive Vice-Chairman of Magna International, Belinda Stronach started off the morning by introducing featured speaker, Melanne Verveer, the newly-appointed Ambassador of Global Women’s Issues at the State Department. Verveer spoke about the importance of focusing on women’s issues around the world, calling them both the keystone and most vulnerable population. She explained that we should, however, “look at girls and women not as victims…but as agents of change.”

Temin and Levine gave a brief overview of the report findings, including the most prevailing and serious health problems facing adolescent girls in developing countries. The report lays out an ambitious, yet feasible agenda of eight priorities for action which researchers believe will help to break the vicious cycles of ill health.

The eight actions are as follows:

1. Implement a comprehensive health agenda for adolescent girls in at least three countries.
2. Eliminate marriage for girls younger than 18.
3. Place adolescent girls at the center of international and national action and investment on maternal health.
4. Focus HIV prevention on adolescent girls.
5. Make health-system strengthening and monitoring work for girls.
6. Make secondary-school completion a priority for adolescent girls.
7. Create an innovation fund for girls’ health.
8. Increase donor support for adolescent girls’ health.

The event was followed by a brief panel discussion which featured participants from the World Health Organization, Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and the NoVo Foundation.

The Start with a Girl report concludes: “A comprehensive agenda for girls’ health is within reach.” We have the resources. All we need is the will.

You can read more about the report here.

-Robyn Mitchell and Jen Fraser