Statement on Eliminating Cervical Cancer

For over 60 years, FIGO has collaborated with the world's top health bodies to work towards the improvement of women's health globally.

FIGO is in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO), and attending the 146th WHO Executive Board Meeting in Geneva.

This week we shared our statement on the Director General’s Report on Accelerating the elimination of cervical cancer as a global public health problem.

FIGO (International Federation Gynecology and Obstetrics) notes the Report by the Director General ‘Accelerating the elimination of cervical cancer as a global public health problem’.

We value the focus that the Director General has placed on this important topic, and reconfirm our commitment to unite the FIGO membership from throughout 132 National Member Societies with the WHO in ensuring that bold action is taken to address disparities between high-and low income countries and also within countries.

FIGO members are embedded on the frontlines of global health, and together are committed to solving the preventable tragedy of cervical cancer by 2030.

Our global reach can help to facilitate the delivery of national projects, integrated within broader sexual, reproductive health services, that will coalesce into one global initiative.

FIGO will try to ensure increased funding for HPV immunisation projects so that 90% of girls can be fully immunised with the HPV vaccine by 15 years of age.

FIGO is also committed to meeting your target of 70% of women being screened using high-performance test at 35 and 45 years of age.

During our 2018 World Congress we publicly declared that we agree to undertake efforts to support the promotion of the following actions for impact for girls and women worldwide:

  • Advocate for national cervical cancer strategies which align with the global call to elimination
  • Establish capacity building efforts to expand the knowledge and skills of our membership to contribute to national elimination programmes
  • Contribute expertise to the emerging elimination programme of work, particularly supporting WHO updates of guidelines and technical guidance
  • Harness FIGO collaborations and partnerships to promote cervical cancer elimination efforts in the context of overall wellbeing of women

We are delighted to have expert FIGO representatives actively contributing to the WHO’s work in accelerating cervical cancer elimination.  As a federation of 132 National Member Societies, FIGO has an unparalleled opportunity to focus on these initiatives, and is better placed to do this than virtually any other organisation.