Best Healthcare Partnership

Summary of work

Reducing the adolescent birth rate is a Millennium Development Goal target and global priority. However, thousands of unplanned pregnancies occur annually and many young people remain ill-informed about contraception.

World Contraception Day (WCD), an annual educational campaign designed to raise awareness of contraception amongst young people, celebrated its fifth year in 2011. Since day one the initiative has been made possible by a unique international partnership between Bayer HealthCare, a range of NGOs and a task force of young influencers.

The partnership delivered its most successful WCD campaign ever in 2011 and planning is already underway for 2012.

Judges comments

This campaign demonstrates longevity and will continue to endure. Conducting a survey across 29 countries really is quite something. The outcomes were impressive; amazing in fact – MTV Europe coverage in 15 countries is really amazing. 

Stakeholder comments

Head of global marketing operations: We didn’t think it was possible to exceed the exceptional results from previous years, but the WCD 2011 campaign truly delivered beyond what we thought was possible. The WCD partnership was absolutely crucial to delivering the campaign to such high standards, and each year we receive enquiries from new NGOs wanting to join the partnership.

Journalist: It was very gratifying to work with so many organisations equally committed to ensuring young people talk openly about contraception and the consequences of unprotected sex.