Sage Innovation blends technical expertise with extensive global and in-country advocacy experience to translate and disseminate emerging evidence to spur action, demand generation and critical policy changes. Our team has supported numerous clients, across issue areas, to make a compelling case for underserved populations to have equitable access to services, life-saving commodities and low-cost, effective interventions and tools. 

Our firm has written policy briefs for Family Care International and its partners to advocate for expanded access to misoprostol—a life saving uterotonic—for post partum hemorrhage (PPH) in low-resource settings. On behalf of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), Sage Innovation used a palliative care survey conducted by the European Society for Medical Oncology to develop a brief calling on governments, civil society and international agencies to put new policies and approaches in place for improved access to pain medicines throughout the world.

Photo by Sarah Goltz

Sage Innovation has been at the forefront of global advocacy efforts to expand cervical cancer prevention efforts globally.

Since 2007, Sage Innovation has served as Secretariat for Cervical Cancer Action (CCA)—the first global advocacy partnership aimed at reducing cervical cancer in low- and middle-income countries. In this role, our firm has provided strategic vision and a wide range of services and support from designing and executing global advocacy campaigns; to organizing mulit-day conferences for global health stakeholders; to developing technical resources for in-country partners. Together with CCA’s ten Governing Council Members, we have grown the coalition’s membership to over 2000 individuals and organizations and become an important platform to tackle cervical cancer globally.

Last Year, Sage Innovation co-authored Progress in Cervical Cancer: The CCA Report Card 2015, evaluating global readiness to combat cervical cancer, utilizing innovative technologies and approaches.

Over the past year, we have worked on behalf of CCA to launch the Cervical Cancer Prevention Initiative, a five-year multi-partner initiative designed to scale access to cervical cancer prevention programs for all girls and women in low- and lower-middle income countries. In November 2015, Sage Innovation organized Investing in Cervical Cancer Prevention 2015–2020 a high-level conference in London where the Initiative was launched. Since the launch, our firm has worked closely with Initiative partners including the American Cancer Society, PATH, UNAIDS, Women Deliver, Marie Stopes International, Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon, PSI and many others to shape Initiative activities.

Photo by Lindsay Stark

Since 2007, Sage Innovation has supported International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) and IPPF/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR) to expand their programs and services to include the prevention of cervical cancer in Latin America and Africa and detection of breast cancer in Latin America. Our support has included strategic planning, new program design, high-level advocacy, partnership building and resource mobilization. 

Over the past seven years, we helped IPPF/WHR develop its cervical cancer strategy and design and launch one of the largest and most successful HPV vaccine demonstration projects to date. Working hand and hand with IPPF/WHR, we developed a vaccine introduction model, secured donated commodities and helped to bring the Bolivian government on board as a lead partner. Building on this support, IPPF/WHR has gone on to launch vaccine programs in Honduras and cervical cancer screening programs in El Salvador and selected Caribbean countries. Our team went on to support the project design of IPPF’s novel efforts to deliver cervical cancer prevention services through private sector providers in four African countries. As IPPF expands its efforts to meet emerging women’s health needs, we have most recently supported the Western Hemisphere Region to develop its strategy, technical resources and resource mobilization plans in support of a multi-year effort to integrate breast cancer detection with cervical screening in all of its programs and services in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Photo courtsey of IPPF/WHR and CIES/Bolivia

Governments and their international partners are grappling with the considerable emerging challenges of non-communicable and chronic diseases in developing countries. Our team has spearheaded efforts to bring global health and NCD-focused organizations together to build a robust global response to the growing and unique burden of NCDs on women’s health. With support from the American Cancer Society, our team designed and launched a task force of sixteen leading global health organizations at the historic 2011 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs. Over the past five years, we have coordinated the Taskforce and provided the technical and advocacy support necessary to build and disseminate global evidence for action and mobilize global and national stakeholders to shape a gender specific response to the growing burden of NCDs.

Most recently, our team worked on behalf of the Taskforce to organize and host a Women and NCDs booth at the 2016 Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The booth brought together over 15 organizations committed to women’s health and NCDs. At Women Deliver, we launched “A Call to Action: Women and Non-Communicable Diseases”—a brief co-authored by Sage Innovation, the NCD Alliance and PSI.

Photo by Lindsay Stark

Sage Innovation has been called on twice to develop pioneering guidance for cervical cancer prevention—for the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) and the Oxford Textbook on Oncology.

In 2009, the swift technological advancements in cervical cancer prevention had outpaced the technical guidance available from the World Health Organization. In an effort to ensure information about emerging technologies and approaches reached clinicians, Sage Innovation coordinated and co-edited FIGO’s Global Guidance for Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control. The guidance provided the latest evidence of best practices around HPV vaccine introduction and effective approaches to screening and early treatment in low-resource settings. The guidance was used throughout FIGO’s 130 member associations as an interim resource to program planners and clinicians in advance of updated global guidelines from the WHO, published in 2014.

In 2016, Sage Innovation was ask to co-author a chapter in the Third Edition of the Oxford Textbook on Oncology. This chapter “Cancer Prevention: Vaccination” provides oncologists around the world with the latest evidence, policies and experience scaling access to cancer vaccines. This chapter was written in collaboration with Julian Lob-Levyt the former head of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Photo by Lindsay Stark

Since 2010, Sage Innovation has supported ELMA Philanthropies to increase its commitments and impact in maternal newborn and child health (MNCH) in priority African countries. In an effort to expand the reach and value of their investments in MNCH, ELMA sought to gain an in-depth understanding of current technical approaches; global and country-level initiatives and partnerships; and the global evidence base and best practices for specific inputs and interventions. Among our projects with ELMA, we conducted extensive stakeholder outreach, research and analysis to develop two guiding reports; Human Resources to Improve Maternal and Newborn Health in four African countries and Priority Maternal Newborn and Child Nutrition Interventions in six African countries. These reports provided an analysis of the needs and opportunities in HRH and Nutrition for MNCH and provided strategic recommendations to inform ELMA’s growing commitment to MNCH. 

Photo by Lindsay Stark

Sage Innovation provides strategic guidance to the Jhpiego Innovations Program in support of their commitment and ongoing efforts to advance the field global health innovations. Our team provided an early advocacy and partnership strategy—mapping opportunities and formulating key recommendations—to expand Jhpiego’s contribution to the innovations field through partnership building and targeted advocacy. Most recently, we have supported Jhpiego to design and coordinate a three-part webinar series entitled Ideation to Impact: Together, Delivering on the Promise of Maternal & Newborn Health Technology, which took place in June 2014. The series brought together experts from the innovations, MNH implementation and donor communities to highlight the key challenges and successes around MNH technology development, and the value of and importance in strengthening collaboration among different players to accelerate the development and scale of “game changing” MNH innovations.

Photo by Pawan Pathak