On 18th June 2026, the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) launched a new global campaign ‘Close the Gap: Palliative Care for Children, Everywhere’. The Close the Gap campaign is under the coordination of the WHO convened palliative care working group and has been developed by a global coalition of organisations, led by the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN).
Children’s palliative care is an essential part of universal health coverage and primary health care. It can and should be integrated into health systems in every country, regardless of income level or setting. Governments, global health agencies, donors, and partners share an ethical and legal responsibility to ensure that every child who needs palliative care can access it. Yet millions of children around the world continue to experience preventable pain and suffering because they lack access to palliative care and essential health services. The Close the Gap campaign is calling for urgent, coordinated action to ensure equitable access to children’s palliative care for all children, everywhere.
The campaign’s launch webinar brought together over 300 live attendees from across the 6 WHO regions. It was chaired by Dr Justin Baker, Chief of the Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care and Director of the QoLA Program at Stanford and Chair of the Board of the ICPCN together with Alex Daniels, ICPCN’s Education Manager.
The first presentation from Dr Megan Doherty, WHO Consultant for Palliative Care, provided background to the campaign and the need to translate the aspiration of the 2014 WHA resolution on palliative care into action. Lacey Ahern, Executive Director of Global Partners in Care gave a presentation on the palliative care working group meeting held in Dubai which co-produced much of the campaign’s messaging and content.
Dr Mike McNeil, Director of St Jude Global Palliative Care Program, gave an overview of the four briefings that have been developed, one on children’s palliative care, one on pain and access to medicines, one on children’s palliative care in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings and one developed for families and the general public to raise awareness of children’s palliative care. He outlined the five priority actions being called for:
1. To integrate children’s palliative care into health policy
2. To develop the workforce at all levels
3. To ensure access to essential medicines
4. To expand integrated models of care
5. To empower children and families as partners
Dr Nahla Gafer, Consultant to the WHO EMRO region and a palliative care doctor in Sudan, talked about the necessity of improving palliative care for children in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings. She shared stark statistics that in 2025 there were 213 million children affected by humanitarian crises, with 6.4 million of these children requiring palliative care, yet only 1% receiving it. She described four fractures: disrupted services and workforce with health facilities destroyed and health professionals often targeted; a controlled medicines abyss with emergencies erasing what little existed; fractured families having to make impossible decisions in desperate situations and invisible children who have no voice and are dying in pain.
“We are their voice, the voice of the voiceless”.
Dr Gayatri Palat, Associate Professor of Pain and Palliative Medicine in Hyderabad, and consultant with Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration presented the briefing on pain, highlighting how it is the most feared symptom, how it is preventable, yet the gap is huge, with 96% of children worldwide experiencing severe untreated pain, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
ICPCN’s Chief Executive, Professor Julia Downing, then presented on the process of developing the campaign materials through partnership with the WHO Working Group, the human-centred design workshop which developed ideas for the campaign, the wide consultation with over 100 organisations worldwide and consultation with the ICPCN’s Family Reference Group. She shared the campaign website where there is an interactive map of individuals and organisations who have signed up to support the campaign.
“We need to turn evidence into action for children’s palliative care worldwide”.
A moving presentation from Emily Tamman, mother of Neve who died from a brain tumour, was a moving tribute to children’s palliative care and the importance of this being available for all children who need it. Emily is a writer, poet and artist and she shared beautiful paintings of her daughter and reminded everyone of the fact that behind all the data, the statistics, the noise, individual children and their families are suffering. It’s vital that these experiences are captured and shared – she asked that Neve’s story should not be so remarkable.
The Close the Gap Campaign was then officially launched by Dr Carlos Rodriguez Chair of the Department of Global Paediatric Medicine and Director of St Jude Global and Dr Roberta Ortiz-Sequeira, Medical Officer for the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer at the World Health Organization.
“Child suffering is not acceptable and that has to change now, today.”
Prior to a lively Q&A session, Dr Rikard Wicksell, the WHO liaison for the International Association for the Study of Pain, emphasised the importance of partnership and the potential for multi-sectorial collaborations, quoting the example of hosting a side event at the WHA in Geneva as a partnership between the interlinked worlds of pain and palliative care.
The webinar recording, the four briefings and campaign toolkit can all be found on the campaign webpage icpcn.org/close-the-gap/ where you can also sign up as an individual or organisation to show your support for the campaign.
“This is a defining moment for our field. This webinar marks the beginning of the campaign and we look forward to going further together.”
By Lizzie Chambers, Programme Manager, ICPCN.
