Financial support for women's health: UNFPA and Charité present new “WomenX Collective” programme in Berlin

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, launched its new “WomenX Collective” programme at the World Health Summit in Berlin on October 15, in conjunction with the opening of its first hub office in a global network of centres specializing in the promotion of women's health, especially sexual and reproductive health, in the German capital.  

The Berlin office will be run in cooperation with Charité – Universitätsmedizin and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). With their new partnership, UNFPA and Charité aim to promote women's health, particularly in middle and low income countries and to address the lack of solutions and financial resources in this field.  

“Every minute, at least two women die globally from breast or cervical cancer or from  pregnancy-related complications due to inequitable access to healthcare," says Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of UNFPA. "Through the WomenX Collective, UNFPA and Charité aim to help bring innovative health solutions to underserved communities, closing the health gap for women worldwide." 

 

Initial financing commitments in place 

With initial funding commitments from international donors, including the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Organon & Co., as well as a donation from Deutsche Postcode Lotterie, the WomenX Collective programme aims to raise at least  $100 million in catalytic investment by 2030 to support women's health projects, scale innovative solutions locally and promote these solutions across sectors. This has the potential to avert more than 10.4 million unintended pregnancies, 3.2 million unsafe abortions, and 21,000 maternal deaths. With the network of hub offices, the programme aims to bring together experience and technical expertise from different countries and regions, as well as modern  technologies and sustainable financing. The office in Berlin will be followed by a hub in Nairobi in 2025. 

To mark the opening of the hub office and the ceremonial signing of the partnership between UNFPA and Charité, partners of the WomenX Collective programme will be joined by Dr. Bärbel Kofler, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic  Cooperation and Development, as well as representatives of the German healthcare sector and stakeholders from the Global South.  

 

Additional quotes from participating organisations: 

“The investment in women's health is convincing with numbers: Through new, women-centred evidence-driven investment opportunities, we want to show that for every euro invested, a dividend of over 7 euros is possible by 2030", says Dr. Nigina Muntean, Chief of  Innovation at UNFPA. “By investing in women's health and fostering innovation, we can unlock significant economic returns and ensure advancements reach those most in need.” 

“Women's health is still under-researched and under-funded,” says Prof. Dr. Heyo K. Kroemer, Chairman of the Board of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and partner of the  WomenX Collective initiative. “We are convinced of the collaborative and integrative approach of WomenX, so I am pleased that Charité can make a contribution here. In order to  address women's health in a sustainable way, we need strong partnerships with institutions from the global North and South.” 

“We are delighted to welcome the WomenX Collective programme under our roof and to contribute to the success of this important project,” says Prof. Dr. Christopher Baum, Chairman of the BIH Board of Directors at Charité and Chairman of the Translational Research Department at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “WomenX Collective aims to leverage proximity to innovations and experts and Berlin features an outstanding ecosystem of health and innovation.” 

“The opening of UNFPA programme in Berlin in partnership with the Charité/BIH offers an opportunity to intensify the diverse initiatives in the field of women's health and to make this  even more effective,” says Prof. Dr. Jalid Sehouli, Medical Director Department of Gynecology including center of oncological surgery (Campus Virchow Klinikum) and  Department of Gynaecology (Campus Benjamin Franklin). 

 

• You can find out more about the programme here
• Contact UNFPA

 

About UNFPA:  

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. UNFPA's mission is to  deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young  person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA calls for the realization of reproductive rights for all and supports access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including  voluntary family planning, quality maternal health care and comprehensive sexuality education.

 

About Charité:  

Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a cutting-edge medical institution, is a leader in  diagnosis and treatment, with a special focus on severe, complex, and rare diseases and  health conditions. A medical school and university medical center in one, Charité has earned  an outstanding reputation worldwide, combining first-class patient care with excellence in  research and innovation, state-of-the-art teaching, and high-quality training and education. At Charité, people and their health come first. Charité is dedicated to transformative translational research, applying the very latest scientific findings to prevention, diagnostics,  and treatment and harnessing clinical observations to develop new lines of research and  scientific questions. Charité’s foremost goal is to actively help shape the medicine of the future, all with one aim in mind: improving patients’ lives and quality of life.  

With more than 100 departments and institutes spanning four campuses and 3,293 beds, Charité is one of Europe’s largest university medical centers. At Charité, the areas of research, teaching, and medical care are closely interconnected. Averaging about 23,500  across the entire group of companies, Berlin’s university medicine organization remained  one of the capital city’s largest employers in 2023. Last year, Charité provided care for some 138,000 inpatients and day case patients and about 788,000 outpatients. There are 9,879  students enrolled in medicine, dentistry, health care sciences, and nursing programs here, at  one of Germany’s largest medical schools. https://www.charite.de/en/ 

 

About the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité:  

The mission of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) is medical translation:  transferring biomedical research findings into novel approaches to personalized prediction, prevention, diagnostics and therapies and, conversely, using clinical observations to develop  new research ideas. The aim is to deliver relevant medical benefits to patients and the  population at large. As the translational research unit within Charité, the BIH is also  committed to establishing a comprehensive translational ecosystem – one that places  emphasis on a system-wide understanding of health and disease and that promotes change  in the biomedical translational research culture. The BIH was founded in 2013 and is funded  90 percent by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and 10 percent by  the State of Berlin. The founding institutions, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Max  Delbrück Center, were independent member entities within the BIH until 2020. Since 2021  the BIH has been integrated into Charité as its so-called third pillar. The Max Delbrück Center is now the Privileged Partner of the BIH.