Toward 2030: SIOP Africa adopts the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer.

Implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer (GICC) has galvanized efforts to improve childhood cancer services across Africa, by providing the CureAll framework.[1] The benefits to being a GICC implementing country are that attention can be focused on identifying needs by convening stakeholders to define shared objectives, increasing the capacity of a country to manage childhood cancer and developing best practices.[1] Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe are currently focus countries with South Africa, Mali, Cameroon and Uganda in the early stages of implementation.[2] The acronym CureAll highlights the four essential pillars of the framework: 1) adequately staffed B C b enters of excellence and care networks, 2) B U b niversal health coverage (UHC) 3) context-appropriate treatment and diagnostic B R b egimens and roadmaps, and 4) B E b valuation and monitoring. The Texas Children's Hospital Global HOPE project has resulted in the training of medical and nursing staff and the initiation of programs to treat children with cancer in centers that previously had no pediatric oncology services. SIOP has engaged with the WHO to attain non-state actor status, leading to the GICC.[9] The SIOP Global Mapping Project is a global program to map pediatric oncology services, and was piloted in Africa. Advocacy for childhood cancer in Africa starts with the value for money proposition that childhood cancer offers. [Extracted from the article]