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Flagship Advocacy Project
Purple for Prematurity Summit
From Awareness to Policy. From Policy to Sustainable Change.
AFPNC’s flagship advocacy platform for premature, small and sick newborns and their families.
The Purple for Prematurity Summit is AFPNC’s flagship advocacy platform for premature, small and sick newborns and their families. More than an annual event, it is a multisectoral national forum that brings lived experience, clinical expertise, research, public policy, financing, community action and media influence into one room, with one purpose: to turn newborn-health priorities into practical, sustainable action.
Why the Summit Matters
- Makes the realities of preterm, small and sick newborns visible at national level.
- Places parents and patient advocates alongside clinicians, researchers and decision-makers, so lived experience helps shape solutions.
- Builds common ground across government, health professionals, academia, civil society, development partners, faith-based institutions, media and the private sector.
- Moves advocacy beyond awareness by connecting dialogue to investment, policy action, professional learning and accountability.
Our Advocacy Journey
1st Summit: Building the National Conversation
The inaugural Summit established a national multisectoral platform focused on improving access to quality care for babies born too soon. It brought together healthcare professionals, parents, patient advocates, policymakers, and researchers, with more than 200 people attending in person, alongside virtual participation.
Key outcomes:
- Put investment in neonatal care and sustainable healthcare solutions at the centre of the conversation.
- Elevated the role of parents and patient advocates in shaping healthcare policy.
- Produced a collective Call to Action focused on neonatal infrastructure, training and resource mobilization.
- Strengthened the case for continued multisectoral collaboration around prematurity and newborn health.
2nd Summit: Moving From Dialogue to Policy Influence
The second edition deepened the Summit’s policy and scientific focus under the theme “Increase Investment in Newborn Health – Give Preterm Babies a Strong Start for a Brighter Future.” Approximately 230 participants attended the in-person Summit, 80 health professionals joined the scientific training, and the national television dialogue reached more than 100,000 viewers.
A defining outcome: Following the Summit and its nationally televised dialogue, AFPNC was invited to Parliament’s Select Committee on Health during the 2026 budget deliberations. The Summit report records Parliament’s unanimous endorsement of the inclusion of NICU-related costs under the NHIS, with implementation referred to the NHIA and Ministry of Health.
The 2025 edition demonstrated the Summit’s growing role as a bridge between family experience, scientific evidence, public engagement and national health-financing decisions.
3rd Summit: Protecting the Future After Discharge
Theme: “Small Babies, Big Potential: Invest in Follow-up Care to Protect Their Future”
The third Summit is scheduled for 11 November 2026 and will take the advocacy agenda beyond survival in the NICU to what happens after a baby goes home. The focus is follow-up and continuing care for premature, small, and sick newborns, an essential but under-resourced part of the continuum of care.
The 2026 agenda will seek to:
- Define the components, gaps and costs of follow-up and continuing care from facility to community.
- Build a consensus position on including follow-up and continuing care within the NHIS benefit package.
- Support national ownership of follow-up-care standards and strengthen alignment with Ghana’s Free Primary Healthcare agenda.
- Strengthen community-to-facility linkages, including outreach, referral, growth and developmental monitoring, family support and WASH/IPC.
- Launch a National Call to Action and deepen public-private and development-partner commitments.
The Summit Model
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Why Partner With the Purple for Prematurity Summit?
Supporting the Summit means investing in more than a conference. It means strengthening a national platform that brings the right voices together, keeps newborn health on the public agenda, develops practical solutions, and carries advocacy forward after the event.
Call to Partners
Join AFPNC in moving newborn-health advocacy from visibility to action, and from action to sustainable impact.
Partners can help AFPNC:
- Expand national and regional participation, including parent and frontline health-worker voices.
- Strengthen scientific learning and evidence-to-policy dialogue.
- Sustain year-round media and public-awareness campaigns.
- Advance policy engagement on NICU financing, follow-up care and the full continuum of care.
- Turn shared commitments into measurable, sustainable improvements for newborns and their families.